roads to revolution

Roads to Revolution 1750–1776

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121

Triumph and Tensions: The British Empire, 1750–1763 (p. 122)

A Fragile Peace, 1750–1754 122

The Seven Years’ War in America,

1754–1760 123

The End of French North America,

1760–1763 124

Anglo-American Friction 126

Frontier Tensions 126

Imperial Authority, Colonial Opposition, 1760–1766 (p. 127)

Writs of Assistance, 1760–1761 127

The Sugar Act, 1764 129

The Stamp Act Crisis, 1765–1766 129

Ideology, Religion, and Resistance 134

Resistance Resumes, 1766–1770 (p. 135)

Opposing the Quartering Act,

1766–1767 135

Crisis over the Townshend Duties,

1767–1770 136

Customs “Racketeering,”

1767–1770 137

“Wilkes and Liberty,” 1768–1770 138

Women and Colonial Resistance 139

The Deepening Crisis, 1770–1774 (p. 140)

The Boston Massacre, 1770 140

The Committees of Correspondence,

1772–1773 141

Confl icts in the Backcountry 141

The Tea Act, 1773 143

Toward Independence, 1774–1776 (p. 143)

Liberty for African-Americans 144

The “Intolerable Acts” 144

The First Continental Congress 146

From Resistance to Rebellion 146

Common Sense 147

Declaring Independence 148

ON THE EVENING of March 5,

1770, an angry crowd of poor and

working-class Bostonians gathered

in front of the guard post outside

the Boston customs house. The

crowd was protesting a British

soldier’s abusive treatment of a

Boston apprentice who was trying to

collect a debt from a British offi cer.

Suddenly, shots rang out. When the

smoke had cleared, four Bostonians

lay dead, and seven more were

wounded, one mortally.

Among those in the crowd was an impoverished twenty-eight-year-old shoemaker named George Robert Twelves Hewes. Hewes had already witnessed, and once experi-enced, abuses by British troops, but the appalling violence of the Boston Massacre, as the shooting became known, led Hewes to political activism. Four of the fi ve who died were personal friends, and he himself received a serious blow from a soldier’s rifl e butt. Over the next several days, Hewes attended meetings and signed petitions denouncing British conduct, and he later testifi ed against the soldiers. Th ereaft er, he participated in such anti-British actions as the Boston Tea Party.

How was it that four thousand British troops were stationed on the streets of Boston—a city of sixteen thousand—in 1770? What had brought those troops and the city’s residents to the point of violence? What led obscure, humble people like George Robert Twelves Hewes to become angry political activists in an age when the lowborn were supposed to leave politics to their social superiors? Th e Boston Massacre was one of a long chain of events, involving people from all walks of life, that culminated in a complete break between Britain and its American colonies.

Th e seeds of confl ict between Britain and the colonies were planted during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), known to Anglo-Americans as the French and Indian War, when Britain and the colonies together defeated France. As a result, Britain gained most of France’s former territory in eastern North America. Th ereaft er, Parliament attempted to reorganize its suddenly enlarged empire by tightening control over eco-nomic and political aff airs in the colonies. Long accustomed to benefi ting economi-cally from the empire while conducting provincial and local aff airs on their own (see Technology and Culture), colonists resisted this eff ort to centralize decision making in London. Many colonists interpreted Britain’s clampdown as calculated antagonism intended to deprive them of their prosperity and self-governance. Others stressed the importance of maintaining order and authority under British rule.

For many ordinary colonists like Hewes, the confl ict was more than a constitutional crisis. In the port cities, crowds of poor and working people engaged in direct, oft en violent demonstrations against British authority. Sometimes, they acted in support of elite radicals, and other times in defi ance of them. Settlers in the remote backcountry

GEORGE ROBERT TWELVES HEWES (Bostonian Society)

THE BOSTON MASSACRE, 1770, ENGRAVING BY PAUL REVERE After this incident, a Bostonian observed, “unless there is some great alteration in the state of things, the era of the independence of the colonies is much nearer than I once thought it, or now wish it.” (Library of

Congress)



122 Chapter 5 • Roads to Revolution, 1750–1776

native-born colonists referred to aff ectionately as “home.” Anglo-Americans were the most reluctant of revolutionaries in 1776.

Triumph and Tensions: The British Empire, 1750–1763King George’s War ended in 1748 with Britain and France still intent on defeating one another. Aft er a “diplomatic revolution” in which Austria shift ed its allegiance from Britain to France, and Britain aligned with Prussia, the Seven Years’ War began. Th is global confl ict pitted British and French forces against one another in every continent except Australia. Th e war resulted in the expulsion of France from mainland North America, leaving the region to a triumphant Britain. Yet even as war wound down, tensions developed within the victorious coalition of Britons, colonists, and Native Americans.

A Fragile Peace, 1750–1754Th e tinderbox for Anglo-French confl ict in North America was the Ohio valley, claimed by Virginia, Pennsylvania, France, and the Six Nations Iroquois, as well as by the Native Americans who actually lived there.

Traders from Virginia and Pennsylvania were strengthening British infl uence among Indians in the Ohio valley. Seeking to drive out the traders, the French began building a chain of forts there in 1753. Virginia retaliated by sending troops under a twenty-one-year-old surveyor and speculator, George Washington, to persuade or force the French to leave. Fearing that Virginia had designs on their land, Native Americans refused to support Washington, and in 1754 French troops drove the Virginians back to their homes.

While Washington was in Ohio, British offi cials called a meeting in mid-1754 of delegates from Virginia and colonies to the north to negotiate a treaty with the Six Nations Iroquois. Iroquois support would be vital in any eff ort to drive the French from the Ohio valley. Seven colonies (but neither Virginia nor New Jersey) sent delegates to the Albany Congress in Albany, New York. Long allied with Britain in the Covenant Chain, the Iroquois were also bound by the Grand Settlement of 1701 to remain neutral in any Anglo-French war. Moreover, the easternmost Mohawk Iroquois were angry because New York set-tlers were encroaching on their land. Although the delegates obtained expressions of friendship from the Six Nations, Iroquois suspicions of Britain persisted.

Th e delegates also endorsed a proposal for a colo-nial confederation, the Albany Plan of Union, largely based on the ideas of Pennsylvania’s Benjamin

of several colonies invoked the language and ideas of urban radicals when resisting large landowners and distant colonial governments dominated by seaboard elites. Th ese radical movements refl ected economic tensions within the colonies as well as the growing defi ance of elites by ordinary colonists. By the same token, the growing participation of white women in colonial resistance refl ected their impa-tience with the restraints imposed by traditional gender norms. African-Americans and Native Americans had varying views, but many in each group perceived the colonists as greater threats to their liberty than Britain. Moreover, colonial pro-tests were inspired by ideas and opposition move-ments in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

Taken as a whole, colonial resistance involved many kinds of people with many outlooks. It arose most immediately from a constitutional crisis within the British Empire, but it also refl ected deep democratic stirrings in America and in the Atlantic world generally. Th ese stirrings would erupt in the American Revolution in 1776, then in the French Revolution in 1789, and subsequently spread over much of Europe and the Americas.

Most colonists expressed their opposition peacefully before 1775, through such tactics as leg-islative resolutions and commercial boycotts, and they did not foresee the revolutionary outcome of their protests. Despite eruptions of violence, rela-tively few Anglo-Americans and no royal offi cials or soldiers lost their lives during the twelve years prior to the battles at Lexington and Concord. Even aft er fi ghting broke out, colonists agonized for more than a year about whether to sever their politi-cal relationship with England, which even some

FOCUS QuestionsHow did Britain and its colonies view their • joint victory over France in the Seven Years’ War?

How did colonial resistance to the Stamp • Act differ from earlier opposition to British imperial measures?

In what ways did resistance to the • Townshend duties differ from earlier colonial resistance efforts?

In what ways did colonists’ views of • parliamentary authority change after 1770?

What led most colonists in 1776 to abandon • their loyalty to Britain and choose national independence?



Triumph and Tensions: The British Empire, 1750–1763 123

Virginians nine miles east of Fort Duquesne. Riddled by three hours of steady fi re from an unseen foe, Braddock’s troops retreated. Nine hundred British and provincial soldiers, including Braddock, died, compared to just twenty-three French and Indians.

As British colonists absorbed the shock of Braddock’s disastrous loss, French-armed Shawnees, Delawares, and Mingos from the upper Ohio valley struck hard at encroaching settlers in western Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. For three years, these attacks halted English expansion and prevented the three colonies from joining the British war against France.

Confronted by the numerically superior but dis-organized Anglo-Americans, the French and their Native American allies—now including the Iroquois—captured Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario in 1756 and Fort William Henry on Lake George in 1757. Th e French now threatened central New York and western New England (see Map 5.1). In Europe, too, the war began badly for Britain, which by 1757 seemed to be facing defeat on all fronts.

In this dark hour, two developments turned the tide for Britain. First, the Iroquois and most Ohio Indians, angered at French treatment of them and sensing that the French were gaining too decisive an advantage, agreed at a treaty conference at Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1758 to abandon the French. Th eir subsequent withdrawal from Fort Duquesne enabled the British to capture it and other French forts. Many Native Americans withdrew from the fi ght-ing, while others actively joined Britain’s cause.

Th e second decisive development occurred when William Pitt took control of military aff airs in the British cabinet and reversed the downward course. Pitt saw himself as the man of the hour. “I know,” he declared, “that I can save this country and that no one else can.” True to his word, Pitt reinvigorated British patriotism throughout the empire. By the war’s end, he was the colonists’ most popular hero, the symbol of what Americans and the English could accomplish when united.

Needing British troops in Europe to face France and its allies (which included Spain aft er 1761), Pitt sought instead to use colonial soldiers on the North American front. He promised the colonies that if they raised the necessary men, Parliament would bear most of the cost of fi ghting the war. Pitt’s off er generated unprece-dented Anglo-American support. Th e colonies provided more than forty thousand troops in 1758–1759, far more soldiers than the crown sent to North America during the entire war.

Franklin and Massachusetts’s Th omas Hutchinson. Th e plan called for a Grand Council representing, and funded by, all the colonial assemblies. A crown-appointed executive offi cer would head the council, which would coordinate military defense and Indian aff airs. Although later regarded as a precedent for American unity, the Albany Plan in fact came to nothing because no colonial legislature approved it.

The Seven Years’ War in America, 1754–1760Although France and Britain remained at peace in Europe until 1756, Washington’s 1754 clash with French troops began the war in North America. In response, the British dispatched General Edward Braddock and a thousand regular troops to North America to seize Fort Duquesne at the headwaters of the Ohio.

Scornful of colonial soldiers and friendly Indians, Braddock expected his disciplined redcoats to make short work of the enemy. On July 9, 1755, about 600 Native Americans and 250 French and Canadians ambushed Braddock’s force of 2,200 Britons and

CHIEF HENDRICK (THEYANOGUIN) OF THE MOHAWK IROQUOIS A longtime (but often critical) ally of the British, Hendrick led the Mohawk delegation to the Albany Congress. (Courtesy of the John

Carter Brown Library at Brown University)

“I know,” Pitt declared,

“that I can save this

country and that no one

else can.”




Under terms of the treaty, France gave up all its lands and claims east of the Mississippi (except New Orleans) to Britain. In return for Cuba, seized by the British in 1762, Spain ceded Florida to Britain. Neither France nor Britain wanted the other to control Louisiana, so in the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1762), France ceded the vast territory to Spain. Th us, France’s once mighty North American empire was reduced to a few tiny fi shing islands off Newfoundland and several prosperous sugar islands in the West Indies. Britain reigned supreme in eastern North America while Spain now claimed the west below Canada (see Map 5.2).

Several thousand French colonists in an area stretching from Quebec to Illinois to Louisiana were suddenly British and Spanish subjects. Th e most adversely aff ected Franco-Americans were the Acadians, who had been nominal British subjects since England took over Acadia in 1713 and renamed it Nova Scotia. In 1755, Nova Scotia’s government

Th e impact of Pitt’s decision was immediate. Anglo-American troops under General Jeff ery Amherst captured Fort Duquesne and Louisbourg in 1758 and drove the French from northern New York the next year. In September 1759, Quebec fell aft er General James Wolfe defeated the French commander-in-chief, Louis Joseph Montcalm, on the Plains of Abraham, where both command-ers died in battle. French resistance ended in 1760 when Montreal surrendered.

The End of French North America, 1760–1763Although the fall of Montreal dashed French hopes of victory in North America, the war continued in Europe and elsewhere. Finally, with defeat inevi-table, France in 1762 began negotiating with its enemies. Th e Seven Years’ War offi cially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

MAP 5.1 THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR IN NORTH AMERICA, 1754–1760 After experiencing major defeats early in the war, Anglo-American forces turned the tide against the French in 1758 by taking Fort Duquesne and Louisbourg. After Canada fell in 1760, the fi ghting shifted to Spain’s Caribbean colonies.



Triumph and Tensions: The British Empire, 1750–1763 125

ordered all Acadians to swear loyalty to Britain and not to bear arms for France. Aft er most refused to take the oath, British soldiers drove them from their homes. About 7,000 of the 18,000 Acadians were forcibly dispersed among Britain’s other colo-nies, while others were sent to France or French colonies. Facing poverty and intense anti-French, anti-Catholic prejudice in the British colonies and seeking to remain together, a majority of the exiles and refugees eventually moved to Louisiana, where their descendants became known as Cajuns.

King George’s War and the Seven Years’ War produced ironically mixed eff ects. On one hand, they fused the bonds between the British and the Anglo-Americans. Fighting side by side against the French Catholic enemy, Britons and colonists had further strengthened their common identity. On the other hand, each war also planted seeds of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion.

DESTRUCTION OF QUEBEC, 1759 After the fall of Quebec to British forces, France’s defeat in North America was virtually certain. (National Archives of Canada)

MAP 5.2 EUROPEAN TERRITORIAL CLAIMS, 1763 The treaties of San Ildefonso (1762) and Paris (1763) divided France’s North American empire between Britain and Spain. Britain in 1763 established direct imperial authority west of the Proclamation Line.




and as undermining Britain’s eff orts to defend its territories.

Pitt’s promise to reimburse the colonial assem-blies for their military expenses angered many in Britain, who concluded that the colonists were escaping scot-free from the war’s fi nancial burden. Colonists had profi ted enormously from the war, as military contracts and spending by British troops brought an infl ux of British currency into the hands of farmers, artisans, and merchants. Some merchants had even traded with the French enemy during war-time. Meanwhile, Britain’s national debt nearly dou-bled during the war, from £72 million to over £132 million. Whereas in 1763 the total debt of all thir-teen colonies amounted to £2 million, the interest charges alone on the British debt came to more than £4 million a year. Th is debt was assumed by British landowners through a land tax and, increasingly, by ordinary consumers through excise duties on such everyday items as beer, tea, salt, and bread.

Colonists felt equally burdened. Th ose who prof-ited during the war spent their additional income on British imports, the annual value of which doubled during the war. Th us, the war accelerated the Anglo-American “consumer revolution” in which colonists’ purchases of British goods fueled Britain’s economy, particularly its manufacturing sector. But when peace returned in 1760, the wartime boom in the colonies ended as abruptly as it had begun. To maintain their lifestyles, many colonists went into debt. British creditors obliged their American merchant cus-tomers by extending the usual period for remitting payments from six months to a year. Nevertheless, many recently prosperous colonists suddenly found themselves overloaded with debts and, in some cases, bankrupt. As colonial indebtedness to Britain grew, some Americans began to accuse the British of deliberately plotting to “enslave” the colonies.

Th e ascension to the British throne of King George III (ruled 1760–1820) at age twenty-two reinforced Anglo-American tensions. Th e new king was determined to have a strong infl uence on government policy, but neither his experience, his temperament, nor his philosophy suited him to the formidable task of building political coalitions and pursuing consistent policies. Until 1774, George III made frequent abrupt changes in government lead-ership that destabilized politics in Britain and exac-erbated relations with the colonies.

Frontier TensionsVictory over the French spurred new Anglo-Indian confl icts that drove the British debt even higher. With the French gone, Ohio and Great Lakes Indians recognized that they could no longer play the two imperial rivals off against each other. Th eir

GEORGE III, STUDIO OF A. RAMSAY, CA. 1767 Although unsure of himself and emotionally little more than a boy upon his accession to the English throne, George III possessed a deep moral sense and a fi erce determination to rule as well as to reign. (Allan Ramsay, Portrait

of George III, oil on canvas, 97x63 inches. IMS33.21b Indianapolis

Museum of Art, The James E. Roberts Fund)

Anglo-American FrictionDuring the Seven Years’ War, British offi cers regu-larly complained about colonial troops, not only their inability to fi ght but also their tendency to return home—even in the midst of campaigns—when their terms were up or when they were not paid on time. For their part, colonial soldiers com-plained of British offi cers who, as one put it, treated their troops “but little better than slaves.”

Tensions between British offi cers and colonial civilians also fl ared. Offi cers complained about colonists being unwilling to provide food and shel-ter while Anglo-Americans resented the offi cers’ arrogant manners. One general groused that South Carolinians were “extremely pleased to have Soldiers to protect their Plantations but will feel no incon-veniences for them.” Quakers in the Pennsylvania assembly, acting from pacifi st convictions, refused to vote funds to support the war eff ort, while assem-blies in New York and Massachusetts opposed the quartering of British troops on their soil as an encroachment on English liberties. English authori-ties regarded such actions as aff ronts to the crown



Imperial Authority, Colonial Opposition, 1760–1766 127

Imperial Authority, Colonial Opposition, 1760–1766Aft er the Seven Years’ War, Anglo-American tensions centered on Britain’s eff orts to fi nance its suddenly enlarged empire through a series of revenue measures and to enforce these and other measures directly rather than relying on local authorities. Following passage of the Stamp Act, opposition movements arose in the mainland colonies to protest not only the new measures’ costs but also what many people considered a dangerous extension of Parliament’s power. Opponents came from all segments of colo-nial society, including poor and working people. Th e crisis revealed a widening gulf between British and colonial perceptions of the proper relationship between the empire and its colonies.

Writs of Assistance, 1760–1761Even before the Seven Years’ War ended, British authorities attempted to halt American merchants’ trade with the French enemy in the West Indies. In

fears that the British would treat them as subjects rather than as allies were confi rmed when General Jeff ery Amherst, Britain’s commander in North America, ordered troops occupying former French posts not to distribute food, ammunition (needed for hunting), and other gift s as the French had done. Moreover, squatters from the colonies were moving onto Indian lands and harassing the occupants, and Native Americans feared that the British occupa-tion was intended to support these incursions.

As tensions mounted, a Delaware Indian religious prophet named Neolin reported a vision in which the “Master of Life,” or Great Spirit, instructed him to urge Native Americans of all tribes to unify and to take back their land and live on it as they had before Europeans—particularly the British—arrived (see Going to the Source). Drawing on Neolin’s mes-sage and inspired by Pontiac, an Ottawa, Indians throughout the Ohio-Great Lakes region, unleashed Pontiac’s War. During the spring and summer of 1763, they sacked eight British forts and besieged four others. But over the next six months, shortages of food and ammunition, a smallpox epidemic at Fort Pitt (triggered when British offi cers deliberately distributed infected blankets at a peace parley), and a recognition that the French would not return led the Indians to make peace with Britain.

Although not a military victory, Pontiac’s War gained some political concessions for Native Americans. Hoping to conciliate the Indians and end the fi ghting, George III issued the Proclamation of 1763, asserting direct British control of land transactions, settlement, trade, and other activities of non-Indians west of a Proclamation Line along the Appalachian crest (see Map 5.2). Th e government sought to control Anglo-American expansion by asserting its authority over the various (and oft en competing) colonies claiming western lands. Th e proclamation recognized existing Indian land titles everywhere west of the “proclama-tion line” until such time as tribal governments agreed to cede their land to Britain through treaties. Although calming Indian fears, the proclamation angered the colonies by subordinating their western claims to imperial authority and by slowing expansion.

Th e uprising was also a factor in the British gov-ernment’s decision to leave ten thousand soldiers in France’s former forts on the Great Lakes and in the Ohio valley to enforce the Proclamation of 1763. Th e cost of maintaining this military presence would reach almost a half million pounds a year, fully 6 percent of Britain’s peacetime budget. Britons considered it per-fectly reasonable for the colonists to help underwrite this expense. Although the troops would help off set the colonies’ unfavorable balance of payments with Britain, many Anglo-Americans regarded them as a peacetime “standing army” that threatened their lib-erty and blocked their expansion onto Indian lands.

INDIAN-BRITISH DIPLOMACY IN THE OHIO COUNTRY, 1764 A brief truce during Pontiac’s War brought Indian and British leaders together to talk peace. Here a Native American speaker presents a wampum belt to his counterparts. (Library of Congress)



128

SOURCEGOING TO THE

Pontiac Recounts a Prophet’s VisionPontiac was an ogema (civil leader) of the Ottawa people. Like many eastern Indians, he distrusted British intentions after the Seven Years War. Speaking to an intertribal audience in spring 1763, Pontiac recounted the vision of the Delaware religious prophet, Neolin. In the following excerpt from that

speech (recorded by a French colonist), Pontiac repeats the words spoken to Neolin by the Master of Life. Note how the Master of Life accounts for the absence of wild animals, which others might attribute to commercial overhunting and the environmental effects of European settlement.

you call your brothers came on your lands, did you not live by bow and arrow? You had no need of gun nor powder, nor the rest of their things, and nevertheless you caught animals to live and clothe yourselves with their skins, but when I saw that you went to the bad, I called back the animals into the depths of the woods, so that you had need of your brothers to have your wants supplied and cover you. You have only to become good and do what I want, and I shall send back to you the animals to live on. I do not forbid you, for all that, to suff er among you the children of your father [whites who live peaceably among the Indians]. I love them, they know me and pray to me, and I give them their necessities and all that they bring to you, but as regards those [whites] who have come to trouble your country, drive them out, make war on them! I love them not, they know me not, they are my enemies and the enemies of your brothers! Send them back to the country which I made for them! Th ere let them remain.

Source: Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections (1886) 8:270–71.

I am the Master of Life, whom you desire to know and to whom you would speak. Listen well to what I am going to say to you and all the red brethren. I am He who made heaven and earth, the trees, lakes, rivers, all men, and all that you see, and all that you have seen on earth. Because of this and because I love you, you must do what I say and leave what I hate. I do not like it that you drink until you lose your reason, as you do; or that you fi ght with each other; or that you take two wives, or run aft er the wives of others; . . . I hate that. You must have but one wife, and keep her until death. When you are going to war, you [must] . . . join the medicine dance, and believe that I am speaking. . . . It is . . . Manitou to whom you [should] speak. It is a bad spirit who whispers to you nothing but evil, and to whom you listen because you do not know me well. Th is land, where you live, I have made for you and not for others. How comes it that you suff er the whites on your lands? Can’t you do without them? I know that those whom you call the children of your Great Father supply your wants, but if you were not bad, as you are, you would well do without them. You might live wholly as you did before you knew them. Before those whom

QUESTIONS1. Why, according to the Master of Life, are Native Americans

suffering?2. What does the Master of Life say Indians must do so that

the animals will return?

Go to the website at www.cengage.com/history/boyerenduring7e for

additional primary sources on this period.




1760, the royal governor of Massachusetts autho-rized revenue offi cers to employ a search warrant called a writ of assistance to seize illegally imported goods. Th e writ permitted customs offi cials to enter any ship or building (including a merchant’s resi-dence) where smuggled goods might be hidden. Because the document required no evidence of probable cause for suspicion, many critics consid-ered it unconstitutional.

Writs of assistance proved eff ective against smug-gling. In quick reaction, some Boston merchants hired lawyer James Otis to challenge the consti-tutionality of the writs. Before the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1761, Otis argued that “an act against the Constitution is void”—even one passed by Parliament. But the court, infl uenced by Chief Justice Th omas Hutchinson, who noted the use of identical writs in England, ruled against the merchants.

Despite losing the case, Otis expressed the fun-damental conception of many, both in Britain and in the colonies, of Parliament’s role under the British constitution. Th e British constitution was not a written document but instead a collection of customs and accepted principles that guaranteed certain rights to all citizens. Most British politicians assumed that Parliament’s laws were themselves part of the constitution and hence that Parliament could alter the constitution at will. But Otis con-tended that Parliament possessed no authority to violate the “rights of Englishmen,” and he asserted that there were limits “beyond which if Parliaments go, their Acts bind not.” Such challenges to parlia-mentary authority would be renewed once peace was restored.

The Sugar Act, 1764In 1764, three years aft er Otis challenged the writs of assistance, Parliament passed the Sugar Act. Th e measure’s goal was to raise revenues to help off set Britain’s military expenses in North America, and thus ended the exemption of colonial trade from revenue-raising measures. Under the Navigation Acts, English importers, not American producers, paid taxes on colonial products entering Britain, and then passed the cost on to consumers. So lit-tle revenue did the Navigation Acts bring in (just £1,800 in 1763) that they did not even pay the cost of their own enforcement.

Th e Sugar Act amended the Molasses Act of 1733, the last of the Navigation Acts, which taxed foreign (primarily French West Indian) molasses and rum entering the mainland colonies at sixpence per gal-lon. But colonial merchants had simply continued to import the cheaper French molasses aft er 1733,

bribing customs offi cials 1 1 _ 2 pence per gallon when it was unloaded. Hoping to end the bribery, Parliament lowered the duty to three-pence per gallon.

Th e Sugar Act also vastly complicated the require-ments for shipping colonial goods. A captain now had to fi ll out a confusing series of documents to certify his trade as legal, and was required to post expensive bond to ensure his compliance.

Finally, the Sugar Act disregarded many tradi-tional English protections for a fair trial. Th e law stipulated that smuggling cases be heard in vice-admiralty courts, where a British-appointed judge gave the verdict, rather than in colonial courts, in which juries decided the outcome. Because the Sugar Act (until 1768) awarded vice-admiralty judges 5 percent of any confi scated cargo, judges had a fi nancial incentive to fi nd defendants guilty. Also, customs offi cials could transfer cases to the vice-admiralty court at Halifax, Nova Scotia, far from any merchant’s home port.

Th e British navy vigorously enforced the Sugar Act. A Boston resident complained in 1764 that “no vessel hardly comes in or goes out but they fi nd some pretense to seize and detain her.” Th at same year, Pennsylvania’s chief justice reported that customs offi cers were extorting fees from small boats carrying lumber across the Delaware River to Philadelphia from New Jersey and seemed likely “to destroy this little River-trade.”

Rather than pay the three-pence tax, Americans continued smuggling molasses until 1766. Th en, to discourage smuggling, Britain lowered the duty to a penny—less than the customary bribe American ship-pers paid to get their cargoes past inspectors. Th e law thereaft er raised about £30,000 annually in revenue.

Because the burden of the Sugar Act fell over-whelmingly on Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, other provinces had little interest in resisting it. Th e Sugar Act’s immediate eff ect was minor, but it irritated urban merchants and height-ened colonists’ sensitivities to the new direction of imperial policies.

The Stamp Act Crisis, 1765–1766Th e revenue raised by the Sugar Act did little to ease Britain’s fi nancial crisis. Th e national debt continued to rise, and Britons bemoaned the second-highest tax rates in Europe. Particularly irritating was the fact that by 1765 their rates averaged 26 shillings per person, whereas the colonial tax burden varied

Otis asserted that there

were limits “beyond

which if Parliaments go,

their Acts bind not.”



130

Technology&Culture

Public Sanitation in Philadelphia

While increasingly preoccupied by colonial and imperial politics, city-dwellers also confronted long-standing environ-mental problems occasioned by rapid growth. The fastest growing city in eighteenth-century America was Philadelphia, whose population approached seventeen thousand in 1760 (see Figure 4.2 in Chapter 4). One key to Philadelphia’s rise was its location as both a major Atlantic port and the gate-way to Pennsylvania’s farmlands and the Appalachian back-country. Local geography also contributed to its success. Choosing a site where the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers met, William Penn had built Philadelphia along a system of streams and the tidal cove on the Delaware into which they fl owed. Philadelphians referred to the principal stream and cove together as “the Dock,” for their principal function. Lining the Dock’s shores were the early city’s mansions and public gathering spaces. As some residents pointed out in 1700, the Dock was the city’s heart and “the Inducing Reason . . . to Settle the Town where it now is.”

Over time, the growth that made Philadelphia so success-ful rendered its environment, especially its water, dangerous to inhabitants’ health. Several leading industries used water for processing animals and grains into consumer products. Tanneries made leather by soaking cowhides several times in mixtures of water and acidic liquids, including sour milk and fermented rye, and with an alkaline solution of butter-milk and dung. When cleaning their vats, tanners dumped residues from these processes into the streets or into under-ground pits from which they seeped into wells and streams. Breweries and distilleries also used water-based procedures and similarly discarded their waste, while slaughterhouses deposited dung, grease, fat, and other unwanted byprod-ucts into streets and streams. Individual residents exacer-bated the problems by tossing garbage into streets, using privies that polluted wells, and leaving animal carcasses to rot in the open air. Most of the city’s sewers were open chan-nels that frequently backed up, diverting the sewage to the streets. Buildings and other obstructions caused stagnant pools to form in streets, and when the polluted water did drain freely, it fl owed into the Dock.

Almost from Philadelphia’s founding, residents had com-plained about the stench arising from waste and stagnant water left by the tanneries and other industries. Many attrib-uted the city’s frequent disease epidemics to these practices.

In 1739, a residents’ petition complained of “the great Annoyance arising from the Slaughter-Houses, Tanyards, . . . etc. erected on the publick Dock, and Streets, adjacent.” It called for prohibiting new tanneries and for eventually remov-ing existing ones. Such efforts made little headway at fi rst. Tanners, brewers, and other manufacturers were among the city’s wealthiest residents and dissuaded their fellow elites from regulating their industries.

A turning point came in 1748 when, after another epi-demic, the Pennsylvania Assembly appointed a committee to recommend improvements in Philadelphia’s sanitation. One member, Benjamin Franklin, was already known both for his innovative approaches to urban issues, as when he organized Philadelphia’s fi rst fi re company in 1736, and for his interest in the practical applications of technology. Combining these interests, Franklin advocated applying new fi ndings in hydrology (the study of water and its distri-bution) and water-pumping technology to public sanitation. Accordingly, the committee recommended building a wall to keep the high tides of the Delaware River out of the Dock, widening the stream’s channel, and covering over a tributary that had become a “common sewer.” The plan was innova-tive not only because it was based on hydrology but also because it acknowledged the need for a public approach to sanitation problems. But once again, neither the city, the col-ony, nor private entrepreneurs would pay for the proposal. Many elites declined to assume the sense of civic responsi-bility that Franklin and his fellow advocates of Enlightenment sought to inculcate.

Only in the 1760s, after both growth and pollution had accelerated, did Philadelphia begin to address the Dock’s problems effectively. In 1762, the Pennsylvania Assembly appointed a board to oversee the “Pitching [sloping], Paving and Cleansing” of streets and walkways, and the design, construction, and maintenance of sewers and storm drains—all intended to prevent waste and stagnant water from accu-mulating on land. In the next year, residents petitioned that the Dock itself be “cleared out, planked at the bottom, and walled on each side” to maximize its fl ow and prevent it from fl ooding. The Assembly responded by requiring adjoining property owners to build “a good, strong, substantial wall of good, fl at stone from the bottom of the said Dock,” and remove any “encroachments” that blocked drainage into



131

or on the streams. Finally, legislators had implemented the kind of public, engineering-based solution that Franklin had advocated two decades earlier.

While some owners evaded their responsibility, others went further by adding an arch over the principal stretch of the Dock. Then they installed market stalls on the newly available surface. Once an open waterway used for trans-port and valued as a central landmark, the Dock was now a completely enclosed, engineered sewer. A new generation of entrepreneurs dominated the neighborhood, catering to consumers who preferred a clean, attractive environment.

Although long in coming, the enclosure of the Dock illus-trated the growing effectiveness of colonial elites in and out of government at working together to solve unprecedented public problems. Thereafter, as in the growing imperial con-troversy, poor and working people expressed their views as well. For example, some pointed out that improvements at the Dock had changed nothing in their own neighborhoods. Writing in a city newspaper in 1769, “Tom Trudge” lamented

the lot of “such poor fellows as I, who sup on a cup of skim milk, etc., have a parcel of half naked children about our doors, . . . whose wives must, at many seasons of the Year, wade to the knees in carrying a loaf of bread to bake, and near whose penurious doors the dung-cart never comes, nor the sound of the paver will be heard for many ages.” Both public and private solutions, “Trudge” and others asserted, favored the wealthy and ignored the less fortunate. But the Revolution would postpone the search for solutions. Philadelphia’s problems with polluted water persisted until 1799, when the city undertook construction of the United States’ fi rst municipal water system.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSISHow did early manufacturing contribute to pollution in • Philadelphia?How did engineering provide a successful resolution of • sanitary problems at the Dock?

“AN EAST PROSPECT OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA” (1756) The Dock was located where the stream indicated on the right side of the map fl ows into the Delaware River. The engraving at the top illustrates Philadelphia’s dynamism as a port city at the time of the Seven Years’ War. (Library of Congress)




legislative powers equivalent to those of the House of Commons in Britain (see Chapter 4).

Many colonists felt that the Stamp Act forced them either to confront the issue of parliamentary taxation head-on or to surrender any claim to mean-ingful rights of self-government. However highly they regarded Parliament, few colonists imagined that it represented them. Th ey accepted the validity of virtual representation for England and Scotland but denied that it extended to the colonies. Instead, they argued, their self-governance was similar to that of Ireland, whose Parliament alone could tax its people but could not interfere with laws, like the Navigation Acts, passed by the British Parliament. Speaking against the Sugar Act, James Otis had expressed this argument: “by [the British] Constitution, every man in the dominions is a free man: that no parts of His Majesty’s dominions can be taxed without consent: that every part has a right to be represented in the supreme or some subordinate legislature.” In essence, the colonists assumed that the empire was a loose federation in which their legislatures possessed con-siderable autonomy, rather than an extended nation governed directly from London.

To many colonists, passage of the Stamp Act demonstrated both Parliament’s indiff erence to their interests and the shallowness of the theory of virtual representation. Provincial assemblies as well as colonial lobbyists in London had urged the act’s defeat, but Parliament had dismissed these appeals without a hearing. Parliament “must have thought us Americans all a parcel of Apes and very tame Apes too,” concluded Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, “or they would have never ventured on such a hateful, baneful experiment.”

In late May 1765, Patrick Henry, a twenty-nine-year-old Virginia lawyer and planter with a talent for fi ery oratory, dramatically conveyed the ris-ing spirit of resistance. Henry urged the Virginia House of Burgesses to adopt seven strongly worded resolutions denying Parliament’s power to tax the colonies. In arguing for the resolutions, Henry reportedly stated that “he did not doubt but some good American would stand up in favor of his country.” Viewing such language as treasonous, the legislators passed only the mildest four of Henry’s resolutions. Garbled accounts of Henry’s resolutions and the debates were published in other colonies, and by year’s end seven other assemblies had passed resolutions against the act. As in Virginia, the reso-lutions were grounded in constitutional arguments and avoided Henry’s infl ammatory language.

Henry’s words resonated more loudly outside elite political circles, particularly in Boston. Th ere, in late summer, a group of middle-class artisans and small business owners joined together as the Loyal Nine to fi ght the Stamp Act. Th ey recognized

from 1 _ 2 to 1 1 _ 2 shillings per inhabitant. Well aware of how lightly the colonists were taxed, British prime minister George Grenville thought they should make a larger contribution to the empire’s American expenses.

To raise such revenues, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765. Th e law obliged colonists to purchase and use special stamped (watermarked) paper for newspapers, customs documents, vari-ous licenses, college diplomas, playing cards, and legal forms used for recovering debts, transferring property, and making wills. As with the Sugar Act, violators would face prosecution in vice-admiralty courts, without juries. Th e prime minister projected yearly revenues of £60,000 to £100,000, which would off set 12 to 20 percent of North American military expenses.

Unlike the Sugar Act, which was an external tax levied on imports, the Stamp Act was an internal tax, or a duty levied directly on property, goods, and government services within the colonies. Whereas external taxes were intended to regulate trade and fell mainly on merchants and ship captains, internal taxes were designed to raise revenue for the crown and aff ected most people at least occasionally.

To Grenville and his supporters, the new tax seemed a small price for the benefi ts of empire, especially since Britons had been paying a similar tax since 1695. Nevertheless, some in England, most notably William Pitt, objected to Britain’s levying an internal tax on the colonies. Th ey emphasized that

the colonists had never been subject to British revenue bills and noted that they already taxed themselves through their own elected assemblies.

Grenville and his followers believed that while Americans did not directly elect members of Parliament, they were “vir-tually” represented there. Th e principle of virtual represen-tation held that all members of Parliament stood above the

narrow interests of their constituents and each con-sidered the welfare of all subjects when deciding issues. By defi nition, then, British subjects, includ-ing colonists, were not represented by particular individuals but by all members of Parliament.

Grenville and his supporters also denied that colonists were exempt from British taxation because they elected their own assemblies. American assemblies, they alleged, were comparable to British local governments, whose powers did not nullify Parliament’s authority over them. But Grenville’s position clashed directly with that of colonists who had long maintained that their assemblies exercised

“[E]very man in the

dominions is a free

man: that no parts of

His Majesty’s dominions

can be taxed without

consent.”




chief justice while many more citizens saw him as a symbol of the royal policies crippling Boston’s economy and their own livelihoods. In their view, wealthy offi cials “rioted in luxury,” with homes and fancy furnishings that cost hundreds of times the annual incomes of most Boston workingmen. Th ey were also reacting to Hutchinson’s eff orts to stop the destruction of his brother-in-law Andrew Oliver’s house. Ironically, Hutchinson privately opposed the Stamp Act.

Th ereaft er, groups similar to the Loyal Nine calling themselves Sons of Liberty began form-ing throughout the colonies. Aft er the assault on Hutchinson’s mansion and an even more violent incident in Newport, Rhode Island, the leaders of the Sons of Liberty sought to prevent more such out-breaks. Th ey recognized that people in the crowds were casting aside their customary deference toward their social “superiors,” a development that could broaden to include all elites if not carefully con-tained. Fearful of alienating wealthy opponents of the Stamp Act, the Sons of Liberty focused their demon-strations strictly against property and invariably left avenues of escape for their victims. Especially fearful that one of their targets might be shot or killed, they forbade their followers to carry weapons.

In October 1765, representatives of nine colo-nial assemblies met in New York City in a Stamp Act Congress. Th e session was remarkable for the colonies’ agreement on and bold articulation of the principle that Parliament lacked authority to levy taxes outside Great Britain and to deny any per-son a jury trial. “Th e Ministry never imagined we could or would so generally unite in opposition to their measures,” wrote a Connecticut delegate, “nor I confess till I saw the Experiment made did I.”

By late 1765, most stamp distributors had resigned or fl ed, and without the water-marked paper required by law, most royal customs offi cials and court offi cers were refusing to perform their duties. In response, legisla-tors compelled the reluctant offi cials to resume operation by threatening to withhold their pay. At the same time, merchants obtained

that the stamp distributors, who alone could accept money for watermarked paper, were the law’s weak link. If the public could pressure them into resign-ing before taxes became due on November 1, the Stamp Act would become inoperable.

It was no accident that Boston set the pace in opposing Parliament. No other port suff ered so much from the Sugar Act’s trade restrictions. But Boston’s misery was compounded by older prob-lems. For several decades, its shipbuilding indus-try had lost signifi cant ground to New York and Philadelphia, and the output of its rum and sugar producers had fallen by half in just a decade. British impressment (forced recruitment) of Massachusetts fi shermen for naval service had undermined the fi shing industry. Th e resulting unemployment led to increased local taxes for poor relief. Th e taxes, along with a shrinking number of customers, drove many marginal artisans out of business and into the ranks of the poor. Other Bostonians, while remain-ing employed or in business, struggled in the face of rising prices and taxes. Moreover, the city had not recovered from a great fi re in 1760 that had burned 176 warehouses and left every tenth family homeless.

Widespread economic distress produced an explo-sive situation in Boston. Already resentful of an elite whose fortunes had risen spectacularly while they suff ered, many poor and working-class Bostonians blamed British offi cials and policies for the town’s hard times. Th e crisis was sharpened because they were accustomed to gathering in large crowds that engaged in pointed political expression, both satirical and seri-ous and usually directed against the “better sort.”

In response to the Stamp Act, Boston’s crowds aimed their traditional forms of protest more directly and forcefully at imperial offi cials. Th e morning of August 14 found a likeness of Boston’s stamp distrib-utor, Andrew Oliver, swinging from a tree guarded by a menacing crowd organized by the relatively moder-ate Loyal Nine. By dusk, Oliver had not resigned, so several hundred Bostonians demolished a building of Oliver’s. Th ereaft er, the Loyal Nine withdrew, and the crowd continued on its own. Th e men surged toward Oliver’s house, where they beheaded his effi gy and “stamped” it to pieces. Th ey then shattered the win-dows of his home, smashed his furniture, and even tore out the paneling. When offi cials tried to disperse the crowd, they were driven off under a barrage of rocks. Surveying his devastated home the next morn-ing, Oliver announced his resignation.

Bitterness against the Stamp Act unleashed spon-taneous, contagious violence. Twelve days aft er Oliver resigned, a crowd demolished the elegant home of Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice Th omas Hutchinson. Boston’s smugglers begrudged Hutchinson for some of his judicial decisions as

ANTI-STAMP ACT TEAPOT Some colonists signaled their opposition to the Stamp Act on the pots from which they drank tea (ironically, purchased from British merchants). Less than a decade later, they would protest a British tax on tea itself. (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

“The Ministry never

imagined we could or

would so generally unite

in opposition to their

measures,”




last the exhausted provinces shall sink into savagery under the yoke of some fortunate Conqueror.”

To force the Stamp Act’s repeal, New York’s mer-chants agreed on October 31, 1765, to boycott all British goods, and businessmen in other cities soon followed their example. Because American colonists purchased about 40 percent of England’s manufactures, this nonimportation strategy put the English economy in danger of recession. Panicked English businessmen descended on Parliament to warn that continuation of the Stamp Act would stimulate a wave of bankruptcies, massive unemployment, and political unrest.

By early 1766, support was growing in Parliament for repeal of the Stamp Act. William Pitt denounced all eff orts to tax the colonies, declaring, “I rejoice that America has resisted.” But most members sup-ported repeal only as a matter of practicality, not as a surrender of principle. In March 1766, Parliament revoked the Stamp Act, but only in conjunction with passage of the Declaratory Act, which affi rmed parliamentary power to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”

Because the Declaratory Act was written in gen-eral language, Anglo-Americans interpreted it to their own advantage. To them, the measure seemed no more than a parliamentary exercise in saving face to compensate for the Stamp Act’s repeal. Th e House of Commons, however, intended that the colonists take the Declaratory Act literally to mean that they could not claim exemption from any parliamentary statute, including a tax law. Th e Stamp Act crisis thus ended in a fundamental disagreement between Britain and America over Parliament’s authority in the colonies.

Ideology, Religion, and ResistanceTh e Stamp Act and the confl icts around it revealed a chasm between Britain and its colonies that startled Anglo-Americans. For the fi rst time, some of them critically reconsidered the imperial relationship. To put their concerns into perspective, educated colonists turned to the works of philosophers, his-torians, and political writers. Many more, both edu-cated and uneducated, looked to religion.

By the 1760s, many colonists were familiar with the political writings of European Enlightenment thinkers, particularly John Locke (see Chapter 4). Locke argued that humans originated in a “state of nature” in which each man enjoyed the “natu-ral rights” of life, liberty, and property. Th ereaft er, groups of men entered into a “social contract,” under which they formed governments for the sole pur-pose of protecting those individual rights. A gov-ernment that encroached on natural rights, then, broke its contract with the people. In such cases, people could resist their government, although Locke cautioned against outright rebellion except in

sailing clearances by insisting they would sue if car-goes spoiled while delayed in port. By late December, the courts and harbors of almost every colony were again functioning.

Th us, colonial elites moved to keep an explo-sive situation from getting out of hand by sup-porting the moderate Sons of Liberty over more

radical groups, by express-ing opposition through the Stamp Act Congress, and by having colonial legisla-tures restore normal busi-ness. Elite leaders feared that chaos could break out, particularly if British troops landed to enforce the Stamp Act. An elite Pennsylvanian, John Dickinson, feared that revolutionary turmoil would lead to “a multitude of Commonwealths, Crimes, and Calamities, Centuries of mutual jealousies, Hatreds, Wars of Devastation, till at

THOMAS HUTCHINSON As lieutenant governor and, later, governor of Massachusetts, Hutchinson believed that social and political order under British authority must be maintained at all costs. (Thomas Hutchinson (1711-80) 1741 (oil on canvas), Truman,

Edward/© Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA, USA,/The

Bridgeman Art Library)

John Dickinson feared

that revolutionary

turmoil would lead

to “a multitude of

Commonwealths,

Crimes, and Calamities,

Centuries of mutual

jealousies, Hatreds,

Wars of Devastation.”



Resistance Resumes, 1766–1770 135

us to . . . tamely give them up,” exhorted one New England minister. Most Anglican min-isters, whose church was headed by the king, tried to stay neutral or opposed the protest; and pacifi st Quakers kept out of the fray. But to large numbers of Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Baptist cler-gymen, battling for the Lord and defending liberty were one and the same.

Voicing such a message, clergymen exerted an enormous infl uence on public opinion. Far more Americans heard sermons than had access to newspa-pers or pamphlets. Provincial proclamations of days of “fasting and public humiliation”—a traditional means of focusing public attention on an issue and invoking divine aid—inspired sermons on the theme of God’s sending the people woes only to strengthen and sustain them until victory. Moreover, protest leaders’ calls for boycotting British luxuries fi t neatly with traditional pulpit warnings against self-indul-gence and wastefulness. Few ordinary Americans escaped the unceasing public reminders that com-munity solidarity against British tyranny and “cor-ruption” meant rejecting sin and obeying God.

Resistance Resumes, 1766–1770Although Parliament’s repeal of the Stamp Act momentarily quieted colonial protests, its search for new sources of revenue soon revived them. While British leaders condemned the colonists for evading their fi nancial responsibilities and for insubordina-tion, growing numbers of Anglo-Americans became convinced that the Stamp Act had not been an iso-lated mistake but rather part of a deliberate design to undermine colonial self-governance. In this, they were joined by many in Britain who opposed policies that seemed to threaten Britons and colonists alike.

Opposing the Quartering Act, 1766–1767Hoping to end disarray in Parliament, George III in August 1766 summoned William Pitt to form a cabinet. Previously sympathetic to the colonies, Pitt might have repaired the Stamp Act’s damage, for no Englishman was more respected in America. But aft er Pitt’s health collapsed in March 1767, eff ective leadership passed to his Chancellor of the Exchequer (treasurer) Charles Townshend.

the most extreme cases. To many colonial readers, Locke’s concept of natural rights appeared to justify opposition to arbitrary legislation by Parliament.

Colonists also read European writers who emphasized excessive concentrations of executive power as tyrannical threats. Some of them devel-oped a set of ideas termed “republican,” in which they balanced Locke’s emphasis on individual rights with an emphasis on the good of the people as a whole. “Republicans” especially admired the sense of civic duty that motivated citizens of the Roman republic. Like the early Romans, they maintained that a free people had to avoid moral and politi-cal corruption, and practice a disinterested “public virtue.” An elected leader of a republic, one author noted, would command obedience “more by the vir-tue of the people, than by the terror of his power.”

Among those infl uenced by republican ideas were a widely read group of English political writers known as oppositionists. According to the oppositionists, Parliament—consisting of the elected representatives of the people—formed the foundation of England’s unique political liberties and protected those liberties against the inherent corruption and tyranny of exec-utive power. But recent prime ministers, the opposi-tionists argued, had exploited the treasury’s resources to bribe politicians and voters. Most members of Parliament, in their view, no longer represented the true interests of the people; rather, they had created self-interested “factions” and joined in a “conspiracy against liberty.” Oft en referring to themselves as the “country party,” the oppositionists feared that a pow-er-hungry “court party” of unelected offi cials close to the king was using a corrupted Parliament to gain absolute power for themselves.

Infl uenced by such ideas, a number of colonists pointed to a diabolical conspiracy behind British policy during the Stamp Act crisis. Joseph Warren of Massachusetts noted that the act “induced some to imagine that the minister designed by this to force the colonies into a rebellion, and from thence to take occasion to treat them with severity, and, by military power, to reduce them to servitude.” Over the next decade, a proliferation of pamphlets denounced British eff orts to “enslave” the colonies through excessive taxation and the imposition of offi cials, judges, and a standing army directed from London. In such assaults on liberty and natural rights, some Americans found principled reasons for opposing British policies and actions.

Beginning with the Stamp Act protest, many Protestant clergymen, both Old Lights and New Lights (see Chapter 4), wove resistance to British authority into their sermons, summoning their congregations to protect their God-given liberty. “A just regard to our liberties . . . is so far from being displeasing to God that it would be ingratitude to him who has given them to

An elected leader of a

republic, one author

noted, would command

obedience “more by

the virtue of the people,

than by the terror of his

power.”




Act (popularly called the Townshend duties) in June and July 1767. Th e new law taxed glass, paint, lead, paper, and tea imported to the colonies from England.

Th e Revenue Act diff ered signifi cantly from what Americans had long seen as a legitimate way of regulating trade through taxation. To the colonists, charging a duty was a lawful way for British author-ities to control trade only if that duty excluded foreign goods by making them prohibitively expen-sive to consumers. Th e Revenue Act, however, set moderate rates that did not price goods out of the colonial market; clearly, its purpose was to collect money for the treasury. Th us from the colonial standpoint, Townshend’s duties were taxes just like the Stamp Act duties.

In reality, the Revenue Act would never yield anything like the income that Townshend antici-pated. Of the various items taxed, only tea produced any signifi cant revenue—£20,000 of the £37,000 that the law was expected to yield. And because the measure would serve its purpose only if British tea were aff ordable to colonial consumers, Townshend eliminated £60,000 worth of import fees paid on tea entering Britain from India before transshipment to America. On balance, the Revenue Act worsened the British treasury’s defi cit by £23,000. But by 1767, Parliament was less concerned with raising revenues than with asserting its authority over the colonies.

Colonial resistance to the Revenue Act remained weak until December 1767, when John Dickinson published twelve essays entitled Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Th e essays argued that although Parliament could regulate trade by impos-ing duties, no tax designed to produce revenue could be considered constitutional unless a people’s elected representatives voted for it. Dickinson said nothing that others had not stated or implied dur-ing the Stamp Act crisis. Rather, his contribution lay in persuading recent opponents of the Stamp Act that their arguments also applied to the Revenue Act. In early 1768, the Massachusetts assembly con-demned the Townshend duties and commissioned Samuel Adams to draft a “circular letter” calling on other colonial legislatures to join it. Adams’s letter forthrightly condemned taxation without repre-sentation. But it acknowledged Parliament as the “supreme legislative Power over the whole Empire,” and it advocated no illegal activities. Th ree other colonies approved Adams’s message and Virginia sent out a more strongly worded circular letter of its own. But most colonial legislatures reacted indiff er-ently. In fact, resistance to the Revenue Act might have disintegrated had the British government not overreacted to the circular letters.

Parliamentary leaders regarded even the mild Massachusetts letter as “little better than an incentive

Just as Townshend took offi ce, a confl ict arose with the New York assembly over the Quartering Act, enacted in 1765. Th is law ordered colonial legislatures to pay for certain goods needed by sol-diers stationed within their respective borders. Th e necessities were inexpensive barracks supplies such as candles, windowpanes, and mattress straw.

Despite its minimal cost, the Quartering Act aroused resentment, for it constituted an indirect tax; that is, although it did not (like the Stamp Act) empower royal offi cials to collect money directly from the colonists, it obligated assemblies to raise a stated amount of revenue. Such obligations clashed with the assemblies’ claimed power to initiate all revenue-raising measures. Th e law fell lightly or not at all on most colonies; but New York, where more soldiers were stationed than in any other province, refused to comply.

New York’s resistance to the Quartering Act produced a torrent of anti-American feeling in Parliament, whose members remained bitter at hav-ing had to withdraw the Stamp Act. In response, they passed the New York Suspending Act (1767), which would delay the assembly until it appropriated the funds. Th e assembly quickly complied before the measure became law.

Although New York’s retreat averted further confrontation, the Quartering Act demonstrated that British leaders would not hesitate to defend Parliament’s authority through the most drastic of all steps: by interfering with American claims to self-governance.

Crisis over the Townshend Duties, 1767–1770As Parliament passed the New York Suspending Act, Townshend expanded his eff orts to subordi-nate the colonies to Parliament’s authority and raise revenues in America. He sought to tax the colo-nists by exploiting an oversight in their arguments against the Stamp Act. In confronting the Stamp Act, Americans had emphasized their opposition to internal taxes but had said little about Parliament’s right to tax imports as they entered the colonies. Townshend chose to interpret this silence as evi-dence that the colonists accepted Britain’s right to tax

their trade—to impose external taxes. Yet not all British politi-cians were so mistaken. “Th ey will laugh at you,” predicted a now wiser George Grenville, “for your distinctions about regulations of trade.” Brushing aside Grenville’s warnings, Parliament passed the Revenue

“They will laugh at you

for your distinctions

about regulations of

trade.”




succeeded in limiting revenue from tea to about one-sixth the level originally expected. Yet colonial resistance leaders took little satisfaction in hav-ing forced Parliament to compromise. Th e tea duty remained a galling reminder that Parliament refused to retreat from the broadest possible interpretation of the Declaratory Act.

Customs “Racketeering,” 1767–1770Besides taxing colonial imports, Townshend had sought addi-tional means of fi nancing British rule in America. Traditionally, royal governors had depended on colonial legislatures to vote their salaries, and assemblies used this power to infl uence gov-ernors’ actions. At Townshend’s urging, Parliament authorized paying the salaries of governors and other royal offi cials in America from revenues raised there, thus freeing offi cials from the assemblies’ control and infl uence. In eff ect, by stripping the assemblies of their most potent weapon, the power of the purse, Parliament’s action threatened to tip the balance of power away from elected colonial representatives and toward unelected royal offi cials.

Townshend hoped to raise revenue through stricter enforcement of existing customs laws. Accordingly, he also persuaded Parliament in 1767 to establish the American Board of Customs Commissioners. Th e law raised the number of port offi cials, funded a colonial coast guard, and provided money for secret informers. It awarded an informer one-third of the value of all goods and ships appro-priated through a conviction for smuggling. Th at fi nes could be tripled under certain circumstances provided an even greater incentive to seize illegal cargoes. Smuggling cases were heard in vice-ad-miralty courts, moreover, where the probability of conviction was extremely high. But the law quickly drew protests because of the way it was enforced and because it assumed those accused to be guilty until or unless they could prove otherwise.

Under the new provisions, revenue agents com-monly fi led charges for technical violations of the Sugar Act, which gave them a pretext for seizing the entire ship. Th ey most oft en exploited a provision that declared any cargo illegal that had been loaded or unloaded without a customs offi cer’s written authori-zation. Customs commissioners also invaded the tra-ditional rights of sailors, who had long supplemented their incomes by making small sales between ports. Anything stored in a sailor’s chest had been con-sidered his private property. Under the new policy,

to Rebellion.” Following Townshend’s sudden death in 1767, Lord Hillsborough, fi rst appointee to the new post of secretary of state for the colonies, took charge of British policy. Hillsborough fl atly told the Massachusetts assembly to disown its letter, for-bade all colonial assemblies to endorse it, and com-manded royal governors to dissolve any legislature that violated his instructions. George III later com-mented that he never met “a man of less judgment than Lord Hillsborough.”

To protest Hillsborough’s crude bullying, many legislatures previously indiff erent to the Massachusetts circular letter now adopted it enthu-siastically. In obedience to Hillsborough, royal governors responded by dismissing legislatures in Massachusetts and elsewhere. Th ese moves played directly into the hands of Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others who sought to ignite widespread public opposition to the Townshend duties.

Although outraged over the Revenue Act, colonial activists needed some eff ective means of pressuring Parliament for its repeal. One approach, nonim-portation, seemed especially promising because it off ered an alternative to violence and would distress Britain’s economy. In August 1768, Boston’s mer-chants therefore adopted a nonimportation agree-ment, and the tactic slowly spread southward. “Save your money, and you save your country!” became the watchword of the Sons of Liberty, who began reorganizing aft er two years of inactivity. Th e suc-cess of nonimportation depended on the compli-ance of merchants whose livelihood relied on buying and selling imports. In several major communities, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charles Town, merchants continued buying British goods until 1769. Nevertheless, the boycott did signifi -cantly limit British imports and mobilized colonists into resuming resistance to British policies.

By 1770, a new British prime minister, Lord North, favored eliminating most of the Townshend duties to prevent the American boycott from widen-ing. But to underscore British authority, he insisted on retaining the tax on tea. Parliament agreed, and in April 1770, giving in for the second time in four years to colonial pressure, it repealed most of the Townshend duties.

Parliament’s partial repeal produced a dilemma for American politicians. Th ey considered it intol-erable that taxes remained on tea, the most profi t-able item for the royal treasury. Colonial leaders were unsure whether they should press on with the nonimportation agreement until they achieved total victory, or whether it would suffi ce to maintain a selective boycott of tea. When the nonimportation movement collapsed in July 1770, colonists resisted external taxation by voluntary agreements not to drink British tea. Th rough nonconsumption, they

George III later

commented that he

never met “a man of

less judgment than

Lord Hillsborough.”




domestic and foreign policies of George III and a Parliament dominated by wealthy landowners. Th eir leader was John Wilkes, a fi ery London editor and member of Parliament who acquired notoriety in 1763 when his newspaper regularly and irrever-ently denounced George III’s policies. Th e govern-ment fi nally arrested Wilkes for seditious libel, but to great popular acclaim, he won his case in court. Th e government, however, succeeded in shutting down his newspaper and in persuading a majority in the House of Commons to deny Wilkes his seat. Aft er again off ending the government with a publi-cation, Wilkes fl ed to Paris.

Defying a warrant for his arrest, Wilkes returned to England in 1768 and again ran for Parliament. By this time, British policies were sparking wide-spread protests. Merchants and artisans in London, Bristol, and other cities demanded the dismissal of the “obnoxious” ministers who were “ruining our manufactories by invidiously imposing and establishing the most impolitic and unconstitu-tional taxations and regulations on your Majesty’s colonies.” Th ey were joined by (nonvoting) weav-ers, coal heavers, seamen, and other workers who protested low wages and high prices that stemmed in part from government policies. All these people rallied around the cry “Wilkes and liberty!”

Aft er being elected again to Parliament, Wilkes was arrested. Th e next day, twenty to forty thousand angry “Wilkesites” gathered on St. George’s Fields, outside the prison where he was held. When mem-bers of the crowd began throwing stones, soldiers and police responded with gunfi re, killing eleven protesters. Th e “massacre of St. George’s Fields” had given the movement some martyrs. Wilkes and an associate were elected twice more and were both times denied their seats by other legislators. Wilkes was besieged by outpourings of popular support from the colonies as well as from Britain. Some Virginians sent him tobacco, and the South Carolina assembly voted to contribute £1,500 to help defray his debts. He maintained a regular cor-respondence with the Boston Sons of Liberty and, upon his release in April 1770, was hailed in a mas-sive Boston celebration as “the illustrious martyr to Liberty.”

Wilkes’s cause sharpened the political think-ing of government opponents in Britain and the colonies alike. Th ousands of English voters signed petitions to Parliament protesting its refusal to seat Wilkes as an aff ront to the electorate’s will. Some of them formed a Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights “to defend and maintain the legal, constitutional liberty of the subject.” While more “respectable” opponents of the government such as William Pitt and Edmund Burke disdained Wilkes

The Pennsylvania

Journal scorned

informers as “dogs of

prey, thirsting after the

fortunes of worthy and

wealthy men.”

crewmen saw their trunks ruthlessly broken open by inspectors who confi scated trading stock worth sev-eral months’ wages because it was not listed on the captain’s loading papers.

Above all, customs commissioners’ use of in-formers provoked retaliation. In 1769, the Pennsyl-vania Journal scorned these agents as “dogs of prey, thirsting aft er the fortunes of worthy and wealthy men.” By betraying the trust of employers, and sometimes of friends, informers aroused hatred in their victims and were roughly handled whenever found.

To merchants and seamen alike, the commis-sioners had embarked on a program of “customs racketeering” that constituted little more than a system of legalized piracy. Nowhere were customs

agents and informers more detested than in Boston, where in June 1768 citizens retaliated against them. Th e occasion was the seizure, on a technicality, of Boston mer-chant John Hancock’s sloop Liberty. Hancock, reportedly North America’s richest mer-chant and a leading oppo-nent of British taxation, had become a chief target of the customs commissioners. Now

they fi ned him £9,000, an amount almost thirteen times greater than the taxes he supposedly evaded on a shipment of Madeira wine. A crowd, “chiefl y sturdy boys and Negroes,” in Th omas Hutchinson’s words, tried to prevent the towing of Hancock’s ship and then began assaulting customs agents. Growing to several hundred as it surged through the streets, the mob drove all revenue inspectors from Boston.

Under Lord North, the British government, aware of customs offi cers’ excesses, took steps to dampen colonial protests. Prosecutors dropped the charges against Hancock, fearing that he would appeal a conviction in England, where honest offi -cials might take action against the commissioners responsible for violating his rights. But British offi -cials were conceding nothing to the colonists. For at the same time, they dispatched four thousand troops to Boston, making clear that they would not tolerate further violent defi ance of their authority.

“Wilkes and Liberty,” 1768–1770Although wealthy Britons blamed the colonists for their high taxes, others in England found common cause with the Americans. Th ey formed a move-ment that arose during the 1760s to oppose the




crisis, and many more had expressed their opposi-tion in discussions and correspondence with family and friends.

Just two years later, women assumed an even more visible role during the Townshend crisis. To protest the Revenue Act’s tax on tea, more than three hundred “mistresses of families” in Boston denounced consumption of the beverage in early 1770. In some ways, the threat of nonconsumption was even more eff ective than that of nonimporta-tion, for women served and drank most of the tea consumed by colonists.

Nonconsumption agreements soon became popular and were extended to include English manufactures, especially clothing. Again women played a vital role, both because they made most household purchases and because it was they who could replace British imports with apparel of their own making. Responding to leaders’ pleas that they expand domestic cloth production, women of all social ranks, even those who customarily did not weave their own fabric or sew their own clothing, organized spinning bees. Th ese events attracted intense publicity as evidence of American determi-nation to forgo luxury and idleness for the common defense of liberty. One historian calculates that more than sixteen hundred women participated in spinning bees in New England alone from 1768 to 1770. Th e colonial cause, noted a New York woman, had enlisted “a fi ghting army of amazons . . . armed with spinning wheels.”

Spinning bees not only helped undermine the notion that women had no place in public life but also endowed spinning and weaving, previously considered routine household tasks, with special political virtue. “Women might recover to this country the full and free enjoyment of all our rights, properties and privileges,” exclaimed the Reverend John Cleaveland of Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1769, adding that this “is more than the men have been able to do.” For many colonists, such logic enlarged the arena of supposed feminine virtues from strictly religious matters to include political issues.

Spinning bees, combined with female support for boycotting tea, dramatically demonstrated that American resistance ran far deeper than the protests of a few male merchants and the largely male crowds in American seaports. Women’s participation showed that colo-nial protests extended into the heart of American households and congregations, and were leading to broader popular par-ticipation in politics.

for courting the “mob,” his movement emboldened them to speak more forcefully against the govern-ment, especially on its policies toward the colonies. Wilkes’s movement also provided powerful rein-forcement for colonists’ challenges to the authority of Parliament and the British government.

Women and Colonial ResistanceColonial boycotts of British goods provided a unique opportunity for white women to join the resistance to British policies. White women’s participation in public aff airs had been widening slowly and unevenly in the colonies for several decades. By the 1760s, when colonial protests against British poli-cies began, colonial women such as Sarah Osborn (see Chapter 4) had become well-known religious activists. Calling themselves the Daughters of Liberty, a contingent of upper-class female patriots had played a part in defeating the Stamp Act. Some had attended political rallies during the Stamp Act

JOHN WILKES, BY WILLIAM HOGARTH, 1763 Detesting Wilkes and all he stood for, Hogarth depicted the radical leader as menacing and untrustworthy. (William L. Clements Library.

University of Michigan)

The colonial cause,

noted a New York

woman, had enlisted

“a fi ghting army of

amazons.…armed with

spinning wheels.”




with tension. Armed sentries and resentful civil-ians traded insults. Th e overwhelmingly Protestant townspeople were especially angered that many sol-diers were Irish Catholics. Th e poorly paid enlisted men, moreover, were free to seek employment when off -duty. Oft en agreeing to work for less than local laborers, they generated fi erce hostility in a community that was plagued by persistently high unemployment.

Poor Bostonians’ deep-seated resentment against British authority erupted on February 22, 1770, when a customs informer shot into a crowd picket-ing the home of a customs-paying merchant, killing an eleven-year-old boy. While elite Bostonians had disdained the unruly exchanges between soldiers and crowds, the horror at a child’s death momen-tarily united the community. “My Eyes never beheld such a funeral,” wrote John Adams. “A vast Number of Boys walked before the Coffi n, a vast Number of Women and Men aft er it. . . . Th is Shews there are many more Lives to spend if wanted in the Service of their country.”

Although the army had played no part in the shooting, it became a natural target for popular frustration and rage. A week aft er the boy’s funeral, tensions between troops and a crowd led by Crispus Attucks, a seaman of African and Native American descent, and including George Robert Twelves Hewes, erupted at the guard post protecting the customs offi ce. When an offi cer tried to disperse the civilians, his men endured a steady barrage of fl ying objects and dares to shoot. A private fi nally did fi re, aft er having been knocked down by a block of ice, and then shouted, “Fire! Fire!” to his fellow soldiers. Th e soldiers’ volley hit eleven persons, fi ve of whom, including Attucks, died.

Th e shock that followed the March 5 bloodshed marked the emotional high point of the Townshend crisis. Royal authorities in Massachusetts tried to defuse the situation by isolating all British soldiers on a fortifi ed island in the harbor, and Governor Th omas Hutchinson promised that the soldiers who had fi red would be tried. John Adams, an elite patriot who opposed crowd actions, served as their attorney. Adams appealed to the Boston jury by claiming that the soldiers had been provoked by a “motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulat-toes, Irish teagues, and outlandish jack tarres,” in other words, people not considered “respectable” by the city’s elites and middle class. All but two of the soldiers were acquitted, and those found guilty suff ered only a branding on their thumbs.

Burning hatreds produced by an intolerable situation underlay the Boston Massacre, as it came to be called in conscious recollection of the St. George’s Fields Massacre in London. Th e shooting of unarmed American civilians by British soldiers

The Deepening Crisis, 1770–1774Aft er 1770, the imperial crisis grew more ominous. Colonists and British troops clashed on the streets of Boston. Resistance leaders in the colonies developed means of systematically coordinating their actions and policies. Aft er Bostonians defi ed a new act of Parliament, the Tea Act, Britain was determined to subordinate the colonies once and for all. Adding to the tensions of the period were several violent con-fl icts that erupted in the western backcountry.

The Boston Massacre, 1770As noted, in response to the violence provoked by Hancock’s case, British authorities had dispatched four thousand troops to Boston in the summer and fall of 1768. Resentful Bostonians regarded the red-coats as a standing army that threatened their lib-erty, as well as a fi nancial burden.

In the presence of so many soldiers, Boston took on the atmosphere of an occupied city and crackled

MERCY OTIS WARREN, BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, 1763 An essayist and playwright, Warren was the most prominent woman intellectual of the Revolutionary era. (Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston, Bequest of Winslow Warren. Photograph@ 2009 Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston)



The Deepening Crisis, 1770–1774 141

Confl icts in the BackcountryAlthough most of the turbulence between 1763 and 1775 swirled in the eastern seaports, numer-ous clashes, involving Native Americans, colonists, and colonial governments, erupted in the West. Th ese confl icts were rooted in the rapid population growth that had spurred the migration of whites to the Appalachian backcountry.

Backcountry tensions surfaced soon aft er the Seven Years’ War in western Pennsylvania, where Scots-Irish Presbyterian settlers had fought repeat-edly with Native Americans. Settlers near Paxton, Pennsylvania, resented the Quaker-dominated assembly for failing to provide them with adequate military protection and for denying them equal rep-resentation in the legislature. Th ey also concluded that all Native Americans, regardless of wartime conduct, were their racial enemies. In December 1763, armed settlers attacked two villages of peace-ful Conestoga Indians, killing and scalping men, women, and children. In February 1764, about 200 “Paxton Boys,” as they were called, set out for Philadelphia, with plans to kill Christian Indian refugees there. A government delegation headed by Benjamin Franklin met the armed, mounted mob on the outskirts of the city. Aft er Franklin promised that the assembly would consider their grievances, the Paxton Boys returned home.

Land pressures and the lack of adequate revenue from the colonies left the British government utterly helpless in enforcing the Proclamation of 1763. Speculators such as George Washington sought western land because “any person who . . . neglects the present opportu-nity of hunting out good Lands will never regain it.” Settlers, traders, hunters, and thieves trespassed on Indian land, oft en responding violently when confronted by the occupants. In the meantime, the British government was unable to maintain garri-sons at many of its forts or to enforce violations of laws and treaties. Under such pressure, Britain and its Six Nations Iroquois allies agreed in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) to grant lands along the Ohio River that were occupied and claimed by Shawnees, Delawares, and Cherokees to the governments of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Th e treaty only heightened western tensions, especially in the Ohio country, where settlers agitated to establish a new colony, Kentucky. Growing vio-lence culminated in 1774 in the unprovoked slaugh-ter by colonists of thirteen Shawnees and Mingos,

and the light punishment given the soldiers forced the colonists to confront the stark possibility that the British government was bent on coercing and suppressing them through naked force. In a play written by Mercy Otis Warren, a character predicted that soon “Murders, blood and carnage/Shall crim-son all these streets” as patriots rose to defend their republican liberty against tyrannical authority.

The Committees of Correspondence, 1772–1773In the fall of 1772, Lord North was preparing to implement Townshend’s goal of paying the royal gov-ernors’ salaries out of customs revenue. Th e colonists had always viewed eff orts to free the governors from fi nancial dependence on the legislatures as a threat to representative government. In response, Samuel Adams persuaded Boston’s town meeting to request that every Massachusetts community appoint a com-mittee whose members would be responsible for exchanging information and coordinating measures to defend colonial rights. Of approximately 260 towns, about half immediately established “committees of correspondence,” and most others did so within a year. Th e idea soon spread throughout New England.

Th e committees of correspondence were resis-tance leaders’ fi rst attempt to maintain close and continuing political cooperation over a wide area. By linking almost every interior community to Boston through a network of dedicated activists, the system enabled Adams to send out messages for each local committee to read at its own town meet-ing, which would then debate the issues and adopt a formal resolution. Involving tens of thousands of colonists to consider evidence that their rights were in danger, the system enabled them to take a per-sonal stand by voting.

Adams’s most successful eff ort to mobilize popu-lar sentiment came in June 1773, when he publicized some letters written by Massachusetts Governor Th omas Hutchinson that Benjamin Franklin had obtained. Massachusetts town meetings discovered through the letters that Hutchinson had advocated “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” and “a great restraint of natural liberty.” Th e publi-cation of Hutchinson’s correspondence confi rmed many colonists’ suspicions of a plot to destroy basic freedoms.

In March 1773, Patrick Henry, Th omas Jeff erson, and Richard Henry Lee proposed that Virginia establish committees of correspondence. Within a year, every province but Pennsylvania had followed its example. By early 1774, a communications web linked colonial leaders for the fi rst time since the Stamp Act crisis of 1766.

Hutchinson had advocated

“an abridgement of what

are called English liberties”

and “a great restraint

of natural liberty.”




of Pennsylvania, where they clashed in 1774 with Pennsylvanians claiming title to the same land.

Expansion also provoked confl icts between back-country settlers and their colonial governments. In North Carolina, a group known as the Regulators aimed to redress the grievances of westerners who, underrepresented in the colonial assembly, found themselves exploited by eastern offi ceholders. Th e Regulator movement climaxed on May 16, 1771, at the battle of Alamance Creek. Leading an army of perhaps thirteen hundred eastern militiamen, North Carolina’s royal governor defeated about twenty-fi ve hundred Regulators in a clash that pro-duced almost three hundred casualties. Although the Regulator uprising then disintegrated, it crip-pled the colony’s subsequent ability to resist British authority.

An armed Regulator movement also arose in South Carolina, in this case to counter the govern-ment’s unwillingness to prosecute bandits who were terrorizing settlers. But the South Carolina govern-ment did not dispatch its militia to the backcountry for fear that the colony’s restive slave population might use the occasion to revolt. Instead, it con-ceded to the principal demands of the Regulators by establishing four new judicial circuits and allowing jury trials in the newly settled areas.

Although not directly interrelated, these epi-sodes all refl ected the tensions generated by an increasingly land hungry white population and its willingness to resort to violence against Native Americans, other colonists, and British offi cials. As Anglo-American tensions mounted in older settled areas, the western settlers’ anxious mood spread.

including eight members of the family of Logan, until then a moderate Mingo leader. Th e outraged Logan led a force of Shawnees and Mingos who retaliated by killing an equal number of white Virginians and then off ered to make peace. Repudiating the off er, Virginia mobilized for what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War (1774), for the colony’s governor. In a decisive battle, the English soundly defeated Logan’s people. During the peace conference that followed, Virginia gained uncontested rights to lands south of the Ohio in exchange for its claims on the northern side. But Anglo-Indian resentments persisted, and fi ghting would resume once Britain and its colonies went to war.

Other western disputes led to confl ict among the colonists themselves. Settlers moving west in Massachusetts in the early 1760s found their titles challenged by powerful New York landlords. When two landlords threatened to evict tenant farmers in 1766, the New Englanders joined the tenants in an armed uprising, calling themselves Sons of Liberty aft er the Stamp Act protesters. In 1769, settlers moving west from New Hampshire also came into confl ict with New York. Aft er four years of guerrilla

warfare, the New Hampshire settlers, calling themselves the Green Mountain Boys, established an independent government. Unrecognized at the time, it eventually became the state of Vermont. A third group of New England set-tlers from Connecticut set-tled in the Wyoming valley

PAXTON BOYS EXPEDITION Militia units organize in Philadelphia, ready to march against the Paxton Boys if necessary. (Granger Collection)

“[A]ny person who …

neglects the present

opportunity of hunting

out good Lands will

never regain it.”



Toward Independence, 1774–1776 143

of corrupt Britain. Armed with “tomahawks,” they headed for the wharf, followed by most of the crowd.

Th e disciplined band assaulted no one and dam-aged nothing but the hated cargo. For almost an hour, thousands of onlookers stood silently trans-fi xed, as if at a religious service, peering through the crisp, cold air of a moonlit night. Th e only sounds were the steady chop of hatchets breaking open wooden chests and the soft splash of tea—forty-fi ve tons in all—on the water. When Boston’s “Tea Party,” as it was later called, was fi nished, the participants left quietly, and the town lapsed into a profound hush.

Toward Independence, 1774–1776Th e calm that followed the Boston Tea Party proved to be a calm before the storm. Th e incident infl amed the British government and Parliament, which now determined once and for all to quash colonial insubordination. Colonial political lead-ers responded with equal determination to defend self-government and liberty. Th e empire and its

The Tea Act, 1773Colonial smuggling and nonconsumption had taken a heavy toll on the British East India Company, which enjoyed a legal monopoly on the sale of tea within Britain’s empire. By 1773, with tons of tea rotting in its warehouses, the company was teeter-ing on the brink of bankruptcy. Lord North could not aff ord to let the company fail. Not only did it pay substantial duties on the tea it shipped to Britain, but it also subsidized British rule in India (as discussed in Chapter 6, Beyond America).

In May 1773, to save the beleaguered East India Company from fi nancial ruin, Parliament passed the Tea Act, which eliminated all remaining import duties on tea entering England and thus lowered the selling price to consumers. To lower the price further, the Tea Act also permitted the company to sell its tea directly to consumers rather than through wholesal-ers. Th ese two concessions reduced the cost of com-pany tea in the colonies well below the price of all smuggled competition. Parliament expected simple economic self-interest to overcome Anglo-American scruples about buying taxed tea.

But the Tea Act alarmed many Americans, above all because it would raise revenue with which the British government would pay royal governors. Th e law thus threatened to corrupt Americans into accepting the principle of parliamentary taxation by taking advantage of their weakness for a frivolous luxury. Quickly, therefore, the committees of corre-spondence decided to prevent East India Company cargoes from being landed, either by pressuring the company’s agents to refuse acceptance or by inter-cepting the ships at sea and ordering them home. In Philadelphia, an anonymous “Committee for Tarring and Feathering” warned harbor pilots not to guide any ships carrying tea into port.

In Boston, however, this strategy failed. On November 28, 1773, the fi rst ship came under the jurisdiction of the customs house, where duties would have to be paid on its cargo within twenty days. Otherwise, the cargo would be seized from the captain and the tea claimed by the company’s agents and placed on sale. When Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other popular leaders requested a special clearance for the ship’s departure, Th omas Hutchinson refused.

On the evening of December 16, fi ve thousand Bostonians gathered at Old South Church. Samuel Adams informed them of Hutchinson’s insistence upon landing the tea and proclaimed that “this meeting can do no more to save the country.” About fi ft y young men, including George Robert Twelves Hewes, stepped forward and disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians—symbolizing a virtuous, proud, and assertive American identity distinct from that

BOSTONIANS PAYING THE EXCISE (TAX) MAN In this engraving, a crowd protests the Tea Act by forcing a British tax collector to drink tea. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown

University)




and whites in the southern colonies, an association that continued during the war that followed.

The “Intolerable Acts”Following the Boston Tea Party, Lord North fumed that only “New England fanatics” could imagine themselves oppressed by inexpensive tea. A member of Parliament drew wild applause by declaring that “the town of Boston ought to be knocked about by the ears, and destroy’d.” In vain the Americans’ sup-porter, Edmund Burke, pleaded for the one action that could end the crisis. “Leave America . . . to tax her-self. . . . Leave the Americans as they anciently stood.” Th e British government, however, swift ly asserted its authority by enacting four “Coercive Acts” that, together with the unrelated Quebec Act, became known to colonists as the “Intolerable Acts.”

Th e fi rst of the Coercive Acts, the Boston Port Bill, became law on April 1, 1774. It ordered the navy to close Boston harbor unless the town arranged to pay for the ruined tea by June 1. Lord North’s cabinet deliberately imposed this impossibly short deadline to ensure the harbor’s closing, which would lead to serious economic distress.

Th e second Coercive Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, revoked the Massachusetts char-ter and restructured the government. Th e colony’s upper house would no longer be elected annually by the assembly but instead be appointed for life by the crown. Th e governor would independently appoint all judges and sheriff s, while sheriff s would appoint jury-men, who previously had been elected. Finally, towns could hold no more than one meeting a year without the governor’s permission. Th ese changes brought Massachusetts into line with other royal colonies.

Th e third of the new acts, the Administration of Justice Act, which some colonists cynically called the Murder Act, permitted any person charged with murder while enforcing royal authority in Massachusetts (such as the British soldiers indicted for the Boston Massacre) to be tried in England or in other colonies.

Finally, a new Quartering Act went beyond the earlier act of 1765 by allowing the governor to requi-sition empty private buildings for housing troops.

Americans learned of the Quebec Act along with the previous four statutes and associated it with them. Intended to cement loyalty to Britain among con-quered French-Canadian Catholics, the law retained Roman Catholicism as Quebec’s established religion. Th is provision alarmed Protestant Anglo-Americans who widely believed that Catholicism went hand in hand with despotism. Furthermore, the Quebec Act gave Canada’s governors sweeping powers but established no legislature. It also permitted property

American colonies were on a collision course, lead-ing by spring 1775 to armed clashes. Yet even aft er blood was shed, colonists hesitated before declaring their independence from Britain. In the meantime, free and enslaved African-Americans pondered how best to realize their own freedom.

Liberty for African-AmericansTh roughout the imperial crisis, African-Americans, as a deeply alienated group within society, quickly responded to calls for liberty and equality. In January 1766, when a group of blacks, inspired by anti-Stamp Act protests, had marched through Charles Town, South Carolina, shouting “Liberty!” they were arrested for inciting a rebellion. Th ereaft er, unrest among slaves—usually in the form of violence or escape—kept pace with that among white rebels. Th en in 1772, a court decision in England electri-fi ed much of the black population. A Massachusetts slave, James Somerset, had accompanied his master to England, where he ran away but was recaptured. Aided by Quaker abolitionists, Somerset sued for his freedom. Writing for the King’s Court, Lord Chief Justice William Mansfi eld ruled that because Parliament had never explicitly established slavery in England, Somerset must be freed.

Although the decision applied only to Somerset and had no force in the colonies, it inspired African-Americans to pursue their freedom. In January 1773, some of Somerset’s fellow Massachusetts blacks fi led the fi rst of three petitions to the legislature, arguing that the decision should be extended to the colony. In Virginia and Maryland, dozens of enslaved per-sons ran away from their masters and sought passage aboard ships bound for England. As Anglo-American tensions mounted in 1774, many slaves, especially in the Chesapeake colonies, looked for war and the arrival of British troops as a means to their lib-eration. Th e young Virginia planter James Madison remarked that “if America and Britain come to a hostile rupture, I am afraid an insurrection among the slaves may and will be promoted” by England.

Madison’s fears were borne out in November 1775 when Virginia’s governor, Lord Dunmore, promised freedom to any able-bodied enslaved man who enlisted in the cause of restoring royal authority. Like Florida’s off er of refuge to escap-ing South Carolina slaves (see Chapter 4), Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation intended to undermine a planter-dominated society by appealing to slaves’ longings for freedom. About one thousand Virginia blacks fl ocked to Dunmore. Th ose who fought donned uniforms proclaiming “Liberty to Slaves.” Dunmore’s proclamation associated British forces with slave liberation in the minds of both blacks




Along with the appointment of General Th omas Gage, Britain’s military commander in North America, as governor of Massachusetts, the “Intolerable Acts” convinced Anglo-Americans that Britain was plot-ting to abolish traditional English liberties throughout North America. Rebel pamphlets fed fears that Gage would starve Boston into submission and appoint corrupt sheriff s and judges to crush political dissent

disputes (but not criminal cases) to be decided by French law, which did not use juries. Finally, the law extended Quebec’s territorial claims south to the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi, a vast area populated by Native Americans and some French. Although it had been designated off -limits by the Proclamation of 1763, several colonies continued to claim portions of the region.

“LIST OF NEGROES THAT WENT OFF TO DUNMORE” (1775) Although Lord Dunmore invited only able-bodied men to fl ee their masters, this list shows that enslaved African-Americans of all ages and both genders sought freedom by responding to his proclamation. How many women signed up? (The Library of Virginia)




the internal turmoil that would surely accompany a head-on confrontation with Britain. Th ese “trim-mers” (John Adams’s scornful phrase) unsuccess-fully opposed nonimportation and tried in vain to win endorsement of Galloway’s plan for an American legislature that would share the authority to tax and govern the colonies with Parliament.

Finally, however, the delegates summarized their principles and demands in a petition to the king. Th is document affi rmed Parliament’s power to regulate imperial commerce, but it argued that all previous par-liamentary eff orts to impose taxes, enforce laws through admiralty courts, suspend assemblies, and unilaterally revoke charters were unconstitutional. By addressing the king rather than Parliament, Congress was implor-ing George III to end the crisis by dismissing those ministers responsible for passing the Coercive Acts.

From Resistance to RebellionTh e divisions within the Continental Congress mir-rored those within Anglo-American society at large. Tensions between moderates and radicals ran high, and bonds between Americans formerly united in outlook sometimes snapped. John Adams’s onetime friend Jonathan Sewall, for example, charged that the Congress had made the “breach with the par-ent state a thousand times more irreparable than it was before.” Fearing that Congress was enthroning “their High Mightinesses, the MOB,” he and like-minded Americans refused to defy the king.

To solidify their defi ance, resistance leaders coerced colonists who refused to support them. Th us the elected committees that Congress had cre-ated to enforce the Continental Association oft en became vigilantes, compelling merchants who still traded with Britain to burn their imports and make public apologies, browbeating clergymen who preached pro-British sermons, and pressuring Americans to adopt simpler diets and dress in order to relieve their dependence on British imports. Additionally, in colony aft er colony, the committees took on government functions by organizing volun-teer military companies and extralegal legislatures. By the spring of 1775, patriots had established pro-vincial “congresses” that paralleled and rivaled the existing assemblies headed by royal governors.

Colonists prepared for the worst by collecting arms and organizing extralegal militia units (locally known as minutemen) whose members could respond instantly to an emergency. On April 19, 1775, Massachusetts’s Governor Gage sent seven hundred British soldiers to seize military supplies that colo-nists had stored at Concord. Two couriers, William Dawes and Paul Revere, rode out to warn nearby towns of the troop movements. At Lexington, about seventy minutemen confronted the soldiers. Aft er a

through rigged trials. By this rea-soning, the new Quartering Act would repress any resistance by forc-ing troops on an unwilling popula-tion, and the “Murder Act” would encourage massacres by preventing local juries from convicting soldiers who killed civilians. Once resistance in Massachusetts had been smashed,

the Quebec Act would serve as a blueprint for extin-guishing representative government throughout the colonies. Parliament would revoke every colony’s char-ter and introduce a government like Quebec’s. Elected assemblies, freedom of religion for Protestants, and jury trials would all disappear.

Intended by Parliament simply to punish Massachusetts and particularly that rotten apple in the barrel, Boston—the acts instead pushed most colonies to the brink of rebellion. Repeal of these laws became, in eff ect, the colonists’ nonnegotiable demand. Of the twenty-seven reasons justifying the break with Britain that Americans later cited in the Declaration of Independence, six concerned these statutes.

The First Continental CongressIn response to the “Intolerable Acts,” the extralegal committees of correspondence of every colony but Georgia sent delegates to a Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Th e fi ft y-six delegates assembled on September 5, 1774, to fi nd a way of defending the colo-nies’ rights in common. Th ose in attendance included Samuel and John Adams of Massachusetts; John Jay of New York; Joseph Galloway and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania; and Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and George Washington of Virginia.

Th e First Continental Congress opened by endors-ing a set of statements called the Suff olk Resolves. Recently adopted at a convention of Massachusetts towns, the resolves declared that the colonies owed no obedience to any of the Coercive Acts, that a pro-visional government should collect all taxes until the former Massachusetts charter was restored, and that defensive measures should be taken in the event of an attack by royal troops. Th e Continental Congress also voted to boycott all British imports aft er December 1 and to halt almost all exports to Britain and its West Indian possessions aft er September 1775 unless a rec-onciliation had been accomplished. Th is agreement, the Continental Association, would be enforced by locally elected committees of “observation” or “safety,” whose members in eff ect would be seizing control of American trade from the royal customs service.

Such bold defi ance displeased some delegates. Jay, Dickinson, Galloway, and other moderates who dominated the middle-colony contingent feared

Jonathan Sewall, feared

that Congress was

enthroning “their High

Mightinesses, the MOB.”



May 1775 to establish an “American continental army” and appointed George Washington its commander.

Th e Olive Branch Petition reached London along with news of the Continental Army’s formation and of a battle fought just outside Boston on June 17. In this engagement, British troops attacked colonists entrenched on Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill. Although they succeeded in dislodging the Americans, the British suff ered 1,154 casualties out of twenty-two hundred men, compared to a loss of 311 patriots.

Aft er Bunker Hill, many Britons wanted retali-ation, not reconciliation. On August 23, George III proclaimed New England in a state of rebellion, and in October he extended that pronouncement to include all the colonies. In December, Parliament likewise declared all the colonies rebellious, outlaw-ing all British trade with them and subjecting their ships to seizure.

Common Sense

Despite the turn of events, many colonists clung to hopes of reconciliation. Even John Adams, who

confused skirmish in which eight minutemen died and a single redcoat was wounded, the British pushed on to Concord. Th ere they found few munitions but encountered a growing swarm of armed Yankees. When some minutemen mistakenly thought the town was being burned, they exchanged fi re with the British regulars and touched off a running battle that continued for most of the sixteen miles back to Boston. By day’s end, the redcoats had suff ered 273 casualties, compared to only 92 for the colonists. Th ese engage-ments awakened the countryside, and by the evening of April 20, some twenty thousand New Englanders were besieging the British garrison in Boston.

Th ree weeks later, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. Most delegates still opposed independence and at Dickinson’s urg-ing agreed to send a “loyal message” to George III. Dickinson composed the Olive Branch Petition list-ing three demands: a cease-fi re at Boston, repeal of the Coercive Acts, and negotiations to establish guaran-tees of American rights. Yet while pleading for peace, the delegates also passed measures that Britain could only construe as rebellious. In particular, they voted in

A VIEW OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD, 1775, BY RALPH EARL British troops enter Concord to search for armaments. A few hours later, hostilities with the townspeople would erupt. (Concord Museum)

147




Britain, removing the last psychological barrier to American independence.

Declaring IndependenceAs Americans absorbed Paine’s views, the military confl ict between Britain and the colonies escalated, making the possibility of reconciliation even less likely. In May 1775, irregular troops from Vermont and Massachusetts had captured Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point on the key route connecting New York and Canada. Six months later, Washington ordered Colonel Henry Knox, the army’s senior artillerist, to bring the British artillery seized at Ticonderoga to reinforce the siege of Boston. Knox and his men built crude sleds to haul their fi ft y-nine cannons through dense forest and rugged, snow-cov-ered mountains. Forty days and three hundred miles aft er leaving Ticonderoga, Knox and his exhausted troops reported to Washington in January 1776. Th ey had accomplished one of the Revolution’s great feats of endurance. Th e guns from Ticonderoga placed the outnumbered British in a hopeless position and forced them to evacuate Boston on March 17, 1776.

Regrouping and augmenting its forces at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Britain planned an assault on New York to drive a wedge between rebellious New

believed in the inevitability of separation, described himself as “fond of reconciliation, if we could reason-ably entertain Hopes of it on a constitutional basis.”

Th rough 1775, many colonists clung to the notion that evil ministers rather than the king were forcing unconstitutional measures on them. But with George III having declared the colonies to be in “open and avowed rebellion . . . for the purpose of establishing an independent empire,” Anglo-Americans had no choice but either to submit or to acknowledge their goal of national independence.

Most colonists’ sentimental attachment to the king, the last emotional barrier to their accepting independence, fi nally crumbled in January 1776 with the publication of Th omas Paine’s Common Sense. A failed corset maker and schoolmaster, Paine immigrated to the colonies from England late in 1774 with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, a penchant for radical politics, and a gift for writing plain and pungent prose that anyone could understand.

Paine told Americans what they had been unable to bring themselves to say: monarchy was an insti-tution rooted in superstition, dangerous to liberty, and inappropriate to Americans. Th e king was “the royal brute” and a “hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh.” Whereas previous writers had main-tained that certain corrupt politicians were direct-ing an English conspiracy against American liberty, Paine argued that such a conspiracy was rooted in the very institutions of monarchy and empire. Moreover, he argued, America had no economic need for the British connection. As he put it, “Th e commerce by which she [America] hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom in Europe.” In addition, he pointed out the events of the preced-ing six months had made independence a reality. Finally, Paine linked America’s awakening national-ism with the sense of religious mission felt by many when he proclaimed, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now.” America, in Paine’s view, would be not only a new nation but a new kind of nation, a model society founded on republican principles and unburdened by the oppressive beliefs and cor-rupt institutions of the European past.

Printed in both English and German, Common Sense sold more than one hundred thousand copies within three months, equal to one for every fourth or fi ft h adult male, making it a best seller. Readers passed copies from hand to hand and read pas-sages aloud in public gatherings. Th e Connecticut Gazette described Paine’s pamphlet as “a landfl ood that sweeps all before it.” Common Sense had dis-solved lingering allegiance to George III and Great

THOMAS PAINE Having arrived in the colonies less than two years earlier, Paine became a best-selling author with the publication of Common Sense (1776). (Art Gallery, Williams Center,

Lafayette College)




of Locke and other Enlightenment fi gures, Jeff erson argued that the English government had violated its contract with the colonists, thereby giving them the right to replace it with a government of their own design. And his eloquent emphasis on the equal-ity of all individuals and their natural entitlement to justice, liberty, and self-fulfi llment expressed republicans’ deepest longing for a government that would rest on neither legal privilege nor exploita-tion of the majority by the few.

Jeff erson addressed the Declaration of Indepen-dence as much to Americans uncertain about the wisdom of independence as to world opinion, for even at this late date a signifi cant minority opposed independence or were uncertain whether to endorse it. Above all, he wanted to convince his fellow citizens that social and political progress could no longer be accomplished within the British Empire. But he left unanswered just which Americans were and were not equal to one another and entitled to liberty. All the colonies endorsing the Declaration countenanced, on grounds of racial inequality, the enslavement of blacks and severe restrictions on the rights of free blacks. Moreover, all had property qualifi cations that prevented many white men from vot-ing. Th e proclamation that “all men” were created equal accorded with the Anglo-American assumption that women could not and should not function politically or legally as autonomous individuals. And Jeff erson’s accusation that George III had unleashed “the merciless Indian savages” on innocent colonists seemed to place Native Americans outside the bounds of humanity.

Was the Declaration of Independence a statement that expressed the sentiments of all but a minority of colonists? In a very narrow sense it was, but by fram-ing the Declaration in universal terms, Jeff erson and the Continental Congress made it something much greater. Th e ideas motivating Jeff erson and his fel-low delegates had moved thousands of ordinary col-onists to political action over the preceding eleven years, both on their own behalf and on behalf of the colonies in their quarrel with Britain. For better or worse, the struggle for national independence had hastened, and become intertwined with, a quest for equality and personal independence that, for many Americans, transcended boundaries of class, race, or gender. In their reading, the Declaration never claimed that perfect justice and equal opportunity existed in the United States; rather, it challenged the Revolutionary generation and all who later inher-ited the nation to bring this ideal closer to reality.

England and the other colonies. Recognizing New York’s strategic importance, Washington led most of his troops there in April 1776.

Other military moves reinforced the drift toward all-out war. In June, Congress ordered a two-pronged assault on Canada in which forces under General Philip Schuyler would move northward via Fort Ticonderoga to Montreal while Benedict Arnold would lead a march through the Maine forest to Quebec. Schuyler succeeded but Arnold failed. As Britain poured troops into Canada, the Americans prudently withdrew. At the same time, a British off ensive in the southern colonies failed aft er an unsuccessful attempt to seize Charles Town.

By spring 1776, Paine’s pamphlet, reinforced by the growing reality of war, had stimulated dozens of local gatherings—artisan guilds, town meetings, county conventions, and militia musters—to pass resolutions favoring American independence. Th e groundswell quickly spread to the colonies’ extrale-gal legislatures. New England was already in rebel-lion, and Rhode Island declared itself independent in May 1776. Th e middle colonies hesitated to sup-port independence because they feared, correctly, that any war would largely be fought over control of Philadelphia and New York. Following the news in April that North Carolina’s congressional delegates were authorized to vote for independence, several southern colonies pressed for separation. Virginia’s legislature instructed its delegates to propose independence, which Richard Henry Lee did on June 7. Formally adopting Lee’s resolution on July 2, Congress created the United States of America.

Th e task of draft ing a statement to justify the colonies’ separation from England fell to a com-mittee of fi ve, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Th omas Jeff erson, with Jeff erson as the principal author. Among Congress’s revisions to Jeff erson’s fi rst draft : insertion of the phrase “pursuit of happiness” in place of “property” in the Declaration’s most famous sentence, and its deletion of a statement blaming George III for foisting the slave trade on unwilling colonists. Th e Declaration of Independence (reprinted in the Appendix at the back of this volume) never mentioned Parliament by name, for Congress had moved beyond arguments over legislative representation and now wanted to separate America altogether from Britain and its head of state, the king. Jeff erson listed twenty-seven “injuries and usurpations” committed by George III against the colonies. And he drew on a familiar line of radical thinking when he added that the king’s actions had as their “direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.”

Like Paine, Jeff erson elevated the colonists’ grievances from a dispute over English freedoms to a struggle of universal dimensions. In the tradition

Jefferson added that

the king’s actions had

as their “direct object

the establishment of an

absolute tyranny over

these states.”




a nonimportation movement. Colonial resistance became even more eff ective during the crisis over the Townshend duties (1767–1770) because of both increased intercolonial cooperation and support from within Britain. Th ereaft er, growing numbers of colonists moved from simply denying Parliament’s authority to tax them to rejecting virtually any British authority over them.

Aft er 1774, independence was almost inevitable. Yet Americans were the most reluctant of revolu-tionaries—even aft er their own state and national legislatures were functioning, their troops had clashed with Britain’s, and George III had declared them to be in rebellion. Tom Paine’s prose fi nally persuaded them that they could stand on their own, without the support of Britain’s markets, manufac-tures, or monarch. Th ereaft er, a grass-roots inde-pendence movement began, leading Congress in July 1776 to proclaim American independence and, thereby, to declare revolutionary war.

Americans by no means followed a single road to revolution. Ambitious elites resented British eff orts to curtail colonial autonomy as exercised almost exclusively by members of their own class in the assemblies. Th ey and many more in the middle classes were angered by British policies that made commerce less profi table and consumption

CONCLUSIONIn 1763, Britain and its North American colonies concluded a stunning victory over France, entirely eliminating that nation’s formidable mainland American empire. Colonists proudly joined in hail-ing Britain as the world’s most powerful nation, and they fully expected to reap territorial and economic benefi ts from the victory. Yet by 1775, colonists and Britons were fi ghting with one another. Th e war had exhausted Britain’s treasury and led the gov-ernment to look to the colonies for help in defray-ing the costs of maintaining its enlarged empire. In attempting to collect more revenue and to central-ize imperial authority, English offi cials confronted the ambitions and attitudes of Americans who felt themselves to be in every way equal to Britons.

Th e diff erences between British and American viewpoints sharpened slowly and unevenly between 1760 and 1776. One major turning point was the Stamp Act crisis (1765–1766), when many Americans began questioning Parliament’s authority, as opposed to that of their own elected legislatures, to levy taxes in the colonies. Colonists also broadened their protests during the Stamp Act crisis, moving beyond carefully worded petitions to fi ery resolu-tions, crowd actions, an intercolonial congress, and

CHRONOLOGY –1754 Albany Congress.

1754–1761 Seven Years’ War (in Europe, 1756–1763).

1755 British expel Acadians from Nova Scotia.

1760 George III becomes king of Great Britain. Writs of assistance.

1762 Treaty of San Ildefonso.

1763 Treaty of Paris. Pontiac’s War. Proclamation of 1763.

1763–1764 Paxton Boys uprising in Pennsylvania.

1764 Sugar Act.

1765 Stamp Act. African-Americans demand liberty in Charles Town. First Quartering Act.

1766 Stamp Act repealed. Declaratory Act.

1767 Revenue Act (Townshend duties). American Board of Customs Commissioners created.

1768 Massachusetts “circular letters.” John Hancock’s ship Liberty seized by Boston customs commissioner.

1768 (Cont.) First Treaty of Fort Stanwix. St. George’s Fields Massacre in London.

1770 Townshend duties, except tea tax, repealed. Boston Massacre.

1771 Battle of Alamance Creek in North Carolina.

1772–1774 Committees of correspondence formed.

1772 Somerset decision in England.

1773 Tea Act and Boston Tea Party.

1774 Lord Dunmore’s War. Coercive Acts and Quebec Act. First Continental Congress.

1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord. Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation. Olive Branch Petition. Battles at Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill. George III and Parliament declare colonies to be in rebellion.

1776 Thomas Paine, Common Sense. Declaration of Independence.



Boston Massacre (p. 121)Seven Years’ War (p. 121)George Washington (p. 122)George III (p. 126)Pontiac’s War (p. 127)Proclamation of 1763 (p. 127)Sugar Act (p. 129)Stamp Act (p. 132)

Sons of Liberty (p. 133)Stamp Act Congress (p. 133)Declaratory Act (p. 134)Revenue Act (p. 136)“committees of correspondence”

(p. 141)Tea Act (p. 143)

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (p. 144)

“Intolerable Acts” (p. 144)Continental Congress (p. 146)Olive Branch Petition (p. 147)Common Sense (p. 148)Declaration of Independence (p. 149)

KEY TERMS

Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (1997). A fi ne study of the immediate context in which independence was conceived and the Declaration was draft ed and received.

Brendan McConville, Th e King’s Th ree Faces: Th e Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776 (2006). An excellent discussion of Anglo-Americans’ sentiments toward the British monarchy from the Glorious Revolution to the eve of the American Revolution.

Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: Th e Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (1980). A wide-ranging discussion of the experiences and roles of women in eighteenth-cen-tury colonial society and the American Revolution.

Gordon S. Wood, Th e American Revolution: A History (2002). A concise interpretive overview of the Revolutionary-constitutional period by one of its leading historians.

Alfred F. Young, Th e Shoemaker and the Revolution: Memory and the American Revolution (1999). A fas-cinating study of the participation of ordinary peo-ple—particularly George Robert Twelves Hewes—in the Revolution, and of how later generations of Americans interpreted and memorialized their role.

Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: Th e Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (2000). A meticulous, engaging study of the war as a critical turning point in the history of British North America.

Bernard Bailyn, Th e Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967). A probing discussion of the ide-ologies that shaped colonial resistance to British authority.

T.H. Breen, Th e Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (2004). A wide-ranging account of the role of con-sumption and boycotts in colonists’ resistance to British rule.

Gregory Evans Dowd, War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire (2002). An outstanding account of Pontiac’s War, emphasizing Native spirituality and the shift ing balance of power in the Northeast following France’s defeat.

Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution (1999). A major reinterpretation of the causes of the Revolution in Virginia, emphasizing the role of internal confl icts across lines of class, race, and eco-nomic interest in propelling secession from Britain.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

For Further Reference 151

more costly. But others, including both western settlers and poor and working city dwellers like George Robert Twelves Hewes, defi ed conventions demanding that humble people defer to the author-ity of their social superiors. Sometimes resorting to violence, they directed their wrath toward British offi cials and colonial elites alike. Many African-

Americans, on the other hand, considered Britain as more likely than white colonists, especially slave-holders, to liberate them. And Native Americans recognized that British authority, however limited, provided a measure of protection from land-hun-gry colonists. Th ese divisions would persist aft er the eruption of full-scale revolutionary war.

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